D&D General Slaads are failures as exemplars of Chaotic NEUTRAL

[Ruin Explorer]

I agree with the general gist that slaad as presented make no sense. However, I would also assert that demons in D&D lore do a poor job of being CE, devils do a poor job of being LE, modrons do a poor job of being LN, and the others probably only avoid this observation simply because they've never been very much represented. Also true, Drow do a poor job in fiction and D&D lore of being CE, and Paladins do a poor job in fiction of being LG.

The Explicatae Incompositae - Being A Bestairy of the Sometime Lords of Chaos

Part the First: Introduction I will now undertake to do something which I know to be foolish – provide for the reader a summary and overview of the race which is most commonly called ‘Slaad’ amongst the learned. There is much that is said regarding this race which is sheer poppycock and...

www.enworld.org

There's some truth to this but I think there have always been takes on those other beings that work pretty well, and not all of those are meant to be supernatural planar exemplars. Drow aren't exemplars, for, um, example. I'd further point out that it's a common but I think illogical and slightly unreasonable take that because a race has a complex social order or societal systems it cannot be individually usually Chaotic. Not saying you're saying that but it's a common objection to the Drow and I feel a very weak one. Chaotic just, to me, may just mean they're not very keen on sticking to the rules, even as they might push the fiction of them when it advantages them. Still I do think NE would be a better average alignment based on lore, so I'm not entirely disagreeing!

 

[Celebrim]

Drow aren't exemplars, for, um, example. I'd further point out that it's a common but I think illogical and slightly unreasonable take that because a race has a complex social order or societal systems it cannot be individually usually Chaotic.

It's possible to have a complex social order and be Chaotic. In fact, for highly populous societies we would expect that chaotic influences would lead to a more complex social order than strictly lawful ones. The reason for this is that we'd expect a highly lawful society to produce a universal social order, but more chaotic one we'd expect to have multiple competing social orders which have arisen at least in part organically and "bottom up" through the interactions of numerous individuals. But none of those things are true of the social order of the Drow, which is "top down", universal, singular, and rather poorly rebelled against. Individuality is heavily suppressed. Rules and the overall social order are rigorously enforced. And while the society does foster competiveness and ruthlessness, nothing about that competitiveness and ruthlessness differentiates it from a lawful evil society. It's clearly evil, but the "law" and "chaos" descriptors are meaningless.

Not saying you're saying that but it's a common objection to the Drow and I feel a very weak one. Chaotic just, to me, may just mean they're not very keen on sticking to the rules...

Except, what we see in the fiction is a society which is rather keen on sticking to the rules. They may bend the letter of the law, but everyone is afraid of cheating because breaking the rules or abandoning them gives society the excuse to collectively persecute the rebel. This situation is enforced on the society top down through a feared and beloved authoritarian lawgiver.

The big problem I have with this is that it confuses the motivations of a mortal actor with an immortal actor. So suppose we have an evil society with a charismatic powerful mortal figure who is chaotic evil. That mortal figure has the motivation to organize society around themselves and so they may well desire to publically promote the values of law in order to increase the loyalty of society to them and thereby increase their personal power. The more lawful their minions, the more loyal they will be to their leader provided that the leader can present a public face of lawfulness and continue the masquerade and charade that they exemplify the lawful principles that they are teaching. And this is a very chaotic evil thing to do.

But, supposing the leader is now an immortal deity that is supposed to exemplify chaos and they have a similar motivation to increase their personal power, they cannot behave in the same manner and encourage the values of law even if doing so increases their temporal power in the short term. There are numerous reasons for this. First, to do so would be philosophically conceding that law is the best way to organize society and that organization and suppression of individuality has value. Secondly, because as an embodiment of chaos, promoting law ought to be so distasteful to them as to be actually painful. Even if the resulting society served them, the resulting society would be too distasteful to bear. As an exemplar of chaos, promoting law for chaotic ends would be as distasteful to them as promoting evil for good ends. The ends do not justify the means here. Finally, in most cosmologies this practice would actually end up decreasing the personal power of the immortal in the long run, since the majority of the chaotic evil deities followers would actually be lawful, we would upon death expect those lawful followers to end up in the camp of a different deity. The charade couldn't continue forever. All that promoting of law in the long run has consequences, in that the power of law over both life and the afterlife would increase to your detriment. Certain available facts would inherently contradict the charade. You hold over your power would be tenuous at best.

Still I do think NE would be a better average alignment based on lore, so I'm not entirely disagreeing!

Sure, but traditional Drow depictions have been centered on exclusive rule of a CE immortal, so even NE represents a bizarre departure. Where is this LE influence coming from and why does Lolth tolerate it?

The truth here I think is somewhat more simple and can be found in the meta and not the fiction. Gygax tended to have the bias that LG was "more good" or "most good" where as CE was "more evil" or "most evil". This shows me that Gygax was not fully certain where he stood on the "law" vs. "chaos" axis, especially once it had been complicated (somewhat against his wish) by the "good/evil" axis. Consider how in BD&D "law" does seem to mostly represent "good" and "chaos" mostly represents "evil", which again is a confusion compared to the source material for the "law/chaos" axis (where neutrality represented life and thus was "good" relative to mortal existence). This bias persists in other people both for the same root reasons and because of the precedent Gygax set. But modern society trends "chaotic" (individualistic) and so if you ask a modern person to imagine the "most evil" thing that they can imagine, they will almost invariably answer by describing some form of fascism and not some form of anarchy. This bias persists in Gygax as well, so having identified "CE" as the most evil thing, when describing it he ironically tended to describe it in terms of LE. And again, this confusion in presentation tends to persist in a wide number of sources, hence the LE nature of Drow society despite supposedly being a society that is universally or nearly universally CE.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

You can recognize that you benefit if few others have your alignment. I think you could probably define NE as thinking the world is a cruel place and you need to be cruel to get ahead, and one of the best ways to get ahead is to take advantage of all the sheep and suckers out there. If you were to "wise them up", it wouldn't be to your advantage.

It seems to me that Tiamat in 5e has adopted a "being CE is great, having CE servants is not" idea (although that may be as much out of trying to make the best of a bad situation).

That being said, I think the issue with most exemplars is that they are either good at spreading their alignment (slaadi do it by infection) or representing the alignment, but not both. Devils are the only ones who do it consistently (the more intelligent the demon, the better chance they can do both, but low level demons are too much into their own fun).

In order to justify the good exemplars not showing up to rescue everyone, they have long been saddled with "never leave the home plane" (Archons and Guardinals) or "have to remain secret" (Eladrin) with a side of "outsourced being symbols of good" to others (usually angels or for NG, moon dogs), which I think is part of the reason so few good exemplars have been stat'd out. If they will show in 5e, there needs to be a reason for them to be involved. For the Archons, maybe make them a warlock patron--they are more combat, less utility than other celestials, so the celestial patron warlock doesn't really fit. They could be looking for "secret agents", maybe they have an arrangement with the gods of FR not to compete for souls (and I would totally be good with Archons running around the city of the dead trying to recruit lawful and good souls that haven't been claimed by a god--no reason devils should be the only ones to do it).

For Guardinals, they should actually guard something. It could be like sphinxes, but PC's have to demonstrate goodness in some tangible fashion (not just "it says 'good' on my PC's sheet) maybe something specific related to what is being guarded or pick a fight with them .

 

[Celebrim]

@MechaTarrasque: The lack of symmetry between the exemplars has always bothered me, and again I think it is best explained by the meta rather than the fiction.

The fictional inspiration for 'demons' is the pulp fiction of the famous N appendix that represents the stories that Gygax is trying to recreate. In that context such as the Conan stories or Leiber's 'Swords' stories, a 'demon' is not a demon as we usually use the term, but rather some sort of far realms Lovecraftian horror that magicians lure into this realm and force them to serve them. As such, it's not at all surprising that there is in the source stories no symmetry between demons and anything else. There are no good exemplars and the 'demons' of these stories are not necessarily related to each other in origin, and are not evil exemplars either. They are demons only in the sense that something like a Mind Flayer is a demon.

Unfortunately, when actually describing demons, D&D made the regrettable decision to take inspiration not mainly from the pulps, but from occult demonology. And it wasn't long before people were importing in angels/celestials in various forms to resist the demons/fiends/infernals. However, there has always been a reluctance to actually let the angels do this, because it doesn't happen (much) in the source material that supernatural powers of good show up and save the day, and there is always a fear of deprotagonizing the PC's if they aren't the ones who are ultimately representing the forces of good.

For my part, I tend to employ symmetry and resolve the problem by making all the exemplars relatively rare (but equally common) on the material plane, and use a lot of native outsiders or 'spirits' to fill in the gap in encounter design. This gives up certain plot elements, like the classic portal to hell through which demonic hordes threaten to invade, but in the context this plot element to me never made much sense anyway outside of a strictly Moorcock spectrum where all the exemplars are equally hostile to mortal life and so the DM is explicitly anointing neutrality as the correct and right moral and ethical system.

 

[Chaosmancer]

@MechaTarrasque: The lack of symmetry between the exemplars has always bothered me, and again I think it is best explained by the meta rather than the fiction.

The fictional inspiration for 'demons' is the pulp fiction of the famous N appendix that represents the stories that Gygax is trying to recreate. In that context such as the Conan stories or Leiber's 'Swords' stories, a 'demon' is not a demon as we usually use the term, but rather some sort of far realms Lovecraftian horror that magicians lure into this realm and force them to serve them. As such, it's not at all surprising that there is in the source stories no symmetry between demons and anything else. There are no good exemplars and the 'demons' of these stories are not necessarily related to each other in origin, and are not evil exemplars either. They are demons only in the sense that something like a Mind Flayer is a demon.

Unfortunately, when actually describing demons, D&D made the regrettable decision to take inspiration not mainly from the pulps, but from occult demonology. And it wasn't long before people were importing in angels/celestials in various forms to resist the demons/fiends/infernals. However, there has always been a reluctance to actually let the angels do this, because it doesn't happen (much) in the source material that supernatural powers of good show up and save the day, and there is always a fear of deprotagonizing the PC's if they aren't the ones who are ultimately representing the forces of good.

For my part, I tend to employ symmetry and resolve the problem by making all the exemplars relatively rare (but equally common) on the material plane, and use a lot of native outsiders or 'spirits' to fill in the gap in encounter design. This gives up certain plot elements, like the classic portal to hell through which demonic hordes threaten to invade, but in the context this plot element to me never made much sense anyway outside of a strictly Moorcock spectrum where all the exemplars are equally hostile to mortal life and so the DM is explicitly anointing neutrality as the correct and right moral and ethical system.

My solution is more about the battlefield the players don't see.

Out in the Astral there are Angels, Demons, Devils, and Abominations in a 4 sided war over the multiverse.

Demons are infinite, so you are more likely to see Angels and Devils ignore each other in favor of stopping demonic forces from wiping everything out. And everything hates abominations, but they are coming in from outside of reality and very few things can follow them outside of reality and deal with them.

I then made a sort of rock-paper-scissors set up.

Demons eat everything. That is why they are dangerous, whatever they consume they destroy. This even applies to the corruptive forces of the Far Realms. Demons can just eat it and be fine.

Devil gather souls and "strengthen them" to resist demonic destruction and Far Realms corruption. But, they have the smallest relative force. They are trying to set up their own way for the universe to run, and rule everything so they can finally stamp out the Demons and Abominations.

Gods have the biggest force it seems, and work through volunteers and champions. They are vulnerable to the corruption of the Far Realms and destruction by Demons, but they also field the most forces and are prepared for the waves that come at them. They've also survived fighting this fight for a long time, so they can generally outmaneuver the enemy.

Far Realms stuff is wierd, and it can eventually corrupt whatever they target, but they don't really work together and they all have different goals. As a single side, there are probably more of them. But the Slaad are trying to harvest magic, the Mindflayers want to eat and spread and rule, the Beholders seem to have no unified purpose, the Aboleths are working some grand scheme involving multiple dimensions and chessmaster style fighting. They are essentially a league of loosely aligned city states stepping into a war between two empires and a mid-sized kingdom. All together, a problem, but individually easy enough to contain and counter.

And since all that is going on, it is really hard for the various forces to deal with the mortal world. Devils and Abominations are the most common. Devils because they need to actively recruit to build up their numbers, and Abominations because they can just slip into the gaps and set up shop, then spread like a disease.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

My solution is more about the battlefield the players don't see.

Out in the Astral there are Angels, Demons, Devils, and Abominations in a 4 sided war over the multiverse.

Demons are infinite, so you are more likely to see Angels and Devils ignore each other in favor of stopping demonic forces from wiping everything out. And everything hates abominations, but they are coming in from outside of reality and very few things can follow them outside of reality and deal with them.

I then made a sort of rock-paper-scissors set up.

Demons eat everything. That is why they are dangerous, whatever they consume they destroy. This even applies to the corruptive forces of the Far Realms. Demons can just eat it and be fine.

Devil gather souls and "strengthen them" to resist demonic destruction and Far Realms corruption. But, they have the smallest relative force. They are trying to set up their own way for the universe to run, and rule everything so they can finally stamp out the Demons and Abominations.

Gods have the biggest force it seems, and work through volunteers and champions. They are vulnerable to the corruption of the Far Realms and destruction by Demons, but they also field the most forces and are prepared for the waves that come at them. They've also survived fighting this fight for a long time, so they can generally outmaneuver the enemy.

Far Realms stuff is wierd, and it can eventually corrupt whatever they target, but they don't really work together and they all have different goals. As a single side, there are probably more of them. But the Slaad are trying to harvest magic, the Mindflayers want to eat and spread and rule, the Beholders seem to have no unified purpose, the Aboleths are working some grand scheme involving multiple dimensions and chessmaster style fighting. They are essentially a league of loosely aligned city states stepping into a war between two empires and a mid-sized kingdom. All together, a problem, but individually easy enough to contain and counter.

And since all that is going on, it is really hard for the various forces to deal with the mortal world. Devils and Abominations are the most common. Devils because they need to actively recruit to build up their numbers, and Abominations because they can just slip into the gaps and set up shop, then spread like a disease.

I have long been fond of Shavarath in Eberron, and I could see this working like that.

In my homebrew, when Far Realmers broke into the multiverse (when the modrons blew up part of Mechanus to keep a devil invasion out [Modrons have a deathly fear of cultural contamination by "uncouth" types, and by modron standards, devils are uncouth] that created Archeron; the outer planes at a shell instead of a wheel and this made a hole in the shell) and the outsiders discovered aberrations have souls, they were overjoyed. The Abyss has been the most successful at harvesting the aberration souls (even though the original hole was far away from the Abyss), with Demogorgon being the most successful (and thus the Demon Prince of Aberrations, rather than the Demon Prince of Demons)

 

[Chaosmancer]

I have long been fond of Shavarath in Eberron, and I could see this working like that.

In my homebrew, when Far Realmers broke into the multiverse (when the modrons blew up part of Mechanus to keep a devil invasion out [Modrons have a deathly fear of cultural contamination by "uncouth" types, and by modron standards, devils are uncouth] that created Archeron; the outer planes at a shell instead of a wheel and this made a hole in the shell) and the outsiders discovered aberrations have souls, they were overjoyed. The Abyss has been the most successful at harvesting the aberration souls (even though the original hole was far away from the Abyss), with Demogorgon being the most successful (and thus the Demon Prince of Aberrations, rather than the Demon Prince of Demons)

LOL, I also made Demogorgon focused on Aberrations.

With my "demons eat everything" I realized I could have each demon lord focus on an plane of existence where they famously go to eat/did eat.

Orcus got Shadowfell
Graz'zt got Nine Hells
Demogorgon got Far Realms
Vaprak got the Heavens (only once, but it was enough)
Yeenoghu and Baphomet got the Material Plane

 

[Ruin Explorer]

@Celebrim I agree with most of that, though I feel like the idea that Chaotic is necessarily bottom-up and Lawful universal and top-down isn't very convincing, I think there's more going on there. Also not sure Lolth's grip is that tight in most takes on Drow (YMMV). Nor do I think being an immortal being necessarily means you seek out your alignment, as it were. I do also agree that much of the problem is the LG = most good and CE = most evil mindset, which seems a distinctly 1E proposition. Virtually everyone I know who started with 2E or later sees NG and NE as "most" good/evil because those are the ones where its potentially the priority.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[MechaTarrasque]

4e definitely had CE being the most evil, it was basically nihilistic evil. I don't remember 3x, but in PF, NE is nihilistic evil (there were nihilistic LE and CE outsider groups in PF1, but they were minor ones, the big NE group, daemons, was strongly nihilistic).

Maybe it is just a 1e thing, but I figure wherever they stick angels (because of the Solar) feels like the "best good." In PF2, angels are primarily NG and in 5e, they are primarily LG. On the other hand, Empyreans have a higher CR than Solars, and they are CG........