Changes to Devils and Demons

[Simia Saturnalia]

Well, I certainly will miss Planescape, but these tidbits sound pretty much perfect for the Points of Light implied setting.

I really like where this is going. Except for real-world mythological deities. For whatever reason it remains the only non-starter in a campaign setting for me, but I figure I can rip them out whole cloth come 4e.

 

[Drkfathr1]

Put me in the column of liking the change. Makes more sense to me. The old categorizations were pretty haphazard anyways. This does provide a great deal more clarity, and was something I was doing on my own already.

'Cause, despite what they write for fluff in official products, I can still re-write/re-work to fit my own campaign.

 

[freyar]

Does seem like they're changing something just to change it, I'd have to agree... and I don't see why the chaos/order conflict is obscure -- it gives some real heft to alignment.

Anyway, the erinyes/succubus merger kind of bothers me a bit. I don't want to lose any monsters! Besides, one thing that strikes me as ironic about getting rid of the erinyes is that they're the devil that currently originated as a fallen angel.

 

[Sammael]

I deed. A lot. Do you have a real arguments to sustain your point of view, rather than shooting "stupid, ignorant!" ?

I did no such thing. However, there was a very clear distinction between the two evil outsiders in both Planescape and all 3.x books, which to me had to mean that you are unfamiliar with material on the matter.

Let's put it like this: I can sit here and quote devil/demon differences from plane-related sourcebooks for days. Can you please elaborate on your very brief point stating that you felt they were the same?

 

[LordVyreth]

I'm also really annoyed at the succubus/erinyes merger. No, they're not holding similar territory at all. They both come from very solid real-world mythological backgrounds, they fill completely different archetypal roles (tempter versus avenger,) and while they had similar statistics in earlier versions, 3.5 deliberately split them up. As for whether the succubus should be a devil, that depends on their purposes. If the demons are now otherworldly horrors previously associated more directly with the Far Realms, then fine. But arguably at least the core demons represented various states of temptation or emotional excesses that give way to evil, and in that case a humanoid demon representing lust makes perfect sense.

Speaking of which, are we even going to have a Far Realm in 4e? Or is that still an unknown? Either way, this change does make me nervous. I judge a system by, among other things, how many house rules I need to implement to even start running it, and this could be my first one out of the gate, depending on how many other races get dumped in core.

 

[Treebore]

I have always considered other planar creatures, such as solars, planetars, demons, and devils to be "extreme" examples of their alignments, so I think having their appearance being much more standardized among devils fits with my views. So if they go with a lot of random and even freakish physical forms and appearances for demons that will rock.

As for the "origins", I have always stuck with the origin of devils that is very widely believed in the real world. Demons, heck, the greater the variety of origin stories I have the better.

 

[NexH]

- Devils are angels who rebelled. They rose up against the deity they served and murdered him. The crime of deicide is unimaginably perverse for angels, and hence devils were cursed and imprisoned in the Nine Hells.

I am wondering how many were the original devils and how long ago did this rebellion happen, since the answers to these questions could make a lot of difference in the cosmology.

- The Nine Hells are what became of the murdered deity's divine realm after his death.

Unless the Nine Hells in 4E are much smaller than now, I'd guess that, for some reason, Baator expanded considerably after the deity's death; the alternative implies that 4E gods are (or at least this god was) much more powerful than the current norm.

The Hells are the devils' prison, and it is difficult for them to get out without mortal aid.

Interesting.

One consequence of this: the erinyes and the succubus were holding down pretty similar territory, so we've decided that they're the same monster, called the succubus, and it's a devil.

I don't see the need for this: sucubbus methods and allegiances are very different from those of the erinyes. Also, it shouldn't be too hard to put a sidebar in one of the fiendish temptress' description, indicating that you can use the same (or similar) stats for both, and describing the non-mechanical differences between them.

- Ice devils don't look like other devils. We've decided that they are actually a demonic/yugoloth race... one that was entrapped by Mephistopheles long ago in an infernal contract. So ice devils hate other devils, retain their insect-like appearance, and have a special loyalty to Mephistopheles. It's one of the reasons why Asmodeus has never chosen to move against Mephistopheles. Asmodeus would of course win if he did, but that would let the ice devils out of their contract.

Flavorful explanation for their non-humanoid appearence. But I'm intrigued: why would Asmodeus want to move against Mephistopheles?

 

[Kaodi]

To clarify, I would almost be surprised if there were no fundamentalist group that latched onto the whole, " We killed God " aspect of the devils background. Yes, similar things happened in other religions, but there aren't exactly a lot of devout followers of the Olympians running around. It's like asking for a resurgence of anti-D&D movement.

 

[Sammael]

Flavorful explanation for their non-humanoid appearence. But I'm intrigued: why would Asmodeus want to move against Mephistopheles?

Because Mephistopheles has tried time and again to kill Asmodeus and take his stuff (more or less openly)?

 

[Szatany]

Wait, if devils are angels who betrayed their god, does it mean that in 4e all gods (including evil ones) use angels as their servants?