D&D 5E Archsuccubi

[gyor]

Its not about the Manual of the Planes, its about the MM, which will be out this year, and there will be at least a page, maybe more devoted to the Succubus especially now that she is not just a single creature type, but a whole Catagory. Plus its just a personal guess, but I'm betting Malchanthet will be in the Succubus section as an example of an Archsuccubus. Maybe others as well, or other types of Succubus. Plus fluff on the Succubus' new ecology, and backstory.

They are not going to wait to begin exploring the planes for the manual of the planes.

 

[DMZ2112]

They are not going to wait to begin exploring the planes for the manual of the planes.

They probably should; that is kind of my point.

 

[Tovec]

Its not about the Manual of the Planes, its about the MM, which will be out this year, and there will be at least a page, maybe more devoted to the Succubus especially now that she is not just a single creature type, but a whole Catagory. Plus its just a personal guess, but I'm betting Malchanthet will be in the Succubus section as an example of an Archsuccubus. Maybe others as well, or other types of Succubus. Plus fluff on the Succubus' new ecology, and backstory.

They are not going to wait to begin exploring the planes for the manual of the planes.

I agree with [MENTION=78752]DMZ2112[/MENTION]. I think they should definitely keep that kind of thing out of the core books. Succubi are excellent creatures to put in a Monster Manual, they really are. WotC can also probably get away with making them "Any Evil" by whatever system they're using to define this. But it is a storm they don't want to walk into blindly as soon as the put Malcanthet and the word Devil or the word Demon anywhere near each other. And worse if they put neither title to her, I think. No one really cares about the minor other archfiends, they're not the big names that people are going to recognize and adhere to. If you saw.. Levistus as a Demon for some reason that would cause a lot of problems and more than a little bit of pain, but no where near as much as seeing Asmodeus to be the king of all Demon-kind.

But this can be avoided to some extent. I've been advocating for such separation for months (years?) now. Have the default succubi, label it as a fiend. Don't specify how it fits in or what type of fiend it might be. Say it can be found working with either of the planar evil-juggernauts. Then release a manual of the planes, I'm assuming primarily focusing on the planescape formula, and provide further details. If they're really smart they'll include multiple arrangements. So, by all means include Malcanthet and the rest (in the MotP), but make it clear that she is a Demon for those who want it that way, a Devil for those who want her there, and a "neither" for those who don't really care or to match the "unaligned" evil that the succubi are presented as in 5e.

In doing this you'll have (1) the same creatures you would have had anyway. (2) Will have tried to find a middle road between VERY different sides. (3) Given options to let DMs pick their own style to match their table. AND (4) made sure that future material pertaining to succubi need only be based on the Monster Manual WITHOUT mention to a fiendish-lord so that games can include at their leisure when they see that they fit. "Oh, this adventure has Devils/Demons? Cool, I'll make the evil advisor a Succubus."

But I predict that WotC will include Malcanthet and other archfiends in their Monster Manual, which will automatically codify that certain creatures work a certain way and then by the default assumption any other appearances that contradict this become head-scratching. "Why is there a legion of succubi attacking with the other hordes of the [Abyss/Nine Hells], they're [devils/demons]? When did they switch sides and why?" Which then rules out people using them in the same way that I think that WotC was trying to achieve, kind of as mercenaries similar to Yugoloths who work with both sides. As soon as you say for certain where Malcanthet and others like her belong it'll be the default which makes it all the harder to change; which is why I think if they're going to do that they should work on a proper book and then fully flesh out other ideas so that people can see a broad array when making the decision. I just don't expect they will.

 

[Shemeska]

Its not about the Manual of the Planes, its about the MM, which will be out this year, and there will be at least a page, maybe more devoted to the Succubus especially now that she is not just a single creature type, but a whole Catagory. Plus its just a personal guess, but I'm betting Malchanthet will be in the Succubus section as an example of an Archsuccubus. Maybe others as well, or other types of Succubus. Plus fluff on the Succubus' new ecology, and backstory.

They are not going to wait to begin exploring the planes for the manual of the planes.

I'm not sure that it would be wise to reinvent the succubus a second time. It didn't exactly go over well last time they tried to change things with three editions of development, especially when some fiends changed to opposite alignment, some monsters radically changed appearance and back history, and others vanished only to see their name reused for entirely different creatures. Moving forward they probably would do best to proceed softly, preserving options wherever possible, rather than IMO trying to define a new solid definition that fits neither the Great Wheel nor the 4e World Axis design and ends up being unpalatable to both camps.

Especially with a lot of the (quite appreciated) conciliatory talk towards the Great Wheel, it would be strange to see some of those changes (like to the succubus) be even more codified in the MM. But we don't know for certain yet what will happen. We'll see.

Something like 'In the Great Wheel cosmology succubi are demons' and then a sidebar with 'in other cosmologies they might be devils, or neither, etc etc'. I think that could work best.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If that's the case, I'm not entirely sure that they'll be going back to the Great Wheel cosmology (they weren't, but the Outer Planes were at least going to largely resemble it, but this however really doesn't fit if that's the case).

It looks like they're trying to do some sort of compromise position here between 1e/2e/3e material and the rather divergent 4e redefinitions. I'm not sure how well that's going to work out.

To be honest, it could work out very well, or very poorly.

The great wheel is mechanistic (literally, but no pun intended!) and really the product of a dull obsession with symmetry even when it doesn't make much mythic/poetic/awesome sense. There's a lot of junk there (and I say that with love, not hate). I think all but the most extreme proponents of the great wheel would agree that it has it's flaws.

Similarly 4E, which whilst it was perhaps more mythic/poetic in it's setup, is flawed, and seemed a bit simplistic and obvious at times, without some of the high weirdness that was cool about the great wheel.

You could definitely take the best of both and come up with a default cosmology which was both far more poetic and exciting than the great wheel, but also less simplistic than that of 4E.

Similarly one could screw it up completely and bring in all the mechanism and boredom of the great wheel, whilst simplifying things 4E style.

Sadly we have a specific example of the latter happening, too - 4E's take on Sigil, which was horrifyingly bad. Inexplicably, they kept Monte Cook's unfinished mess of the Sigil changes, and thus kept the Factions basically exiled/gone (despite there being absolutely zero reason to continue that... continuity, in totally different 4E universe, I mean none whatsoever), and generally pared down Sigil, not to it's essential awesomeness, but to the very most simplistic take possible, and instead of the factions, the city was run largely by incredibly dull Three-Letter-Acronym organisations, like some sort of small city in the Midwest of the US (or some sort of middling corporation! No doubt the Lady of Pain receives her TPS reports on time!), rather than, y'know, the city at the center of everything!

So I can definitely see being worried about this. Whoever did that to Sigil in 4E should be kept the hell away from any D&D cosmology, I would suggest! I pray that they're not on the 5E team, but I fear that they are.

 

[gyor]

From what Mike Mearls described the inner planes I actually think I'll like this verison of the cosmos best.

I call the Great Wheel +.

 

[Sadras]

I've been interested/curious/worried about how they would tackle this subject since I designed my only 4e Hell adventure. It was my first time doing researching on most of the core & supplement material of the cosmology and devil/demons through all the editions and realised just how much they had changed - with regards to settings & creatures.

So when the announcement of 5e came out - strangely I wasn't really concerned about the system at all but rather in which direction they would take the mythology of the devil/demon debate, because since I have delved into that matter for our groups adventure, I find myself liking elements of both cosmologies so colour me confused on the matter.