Pathfinder 1E Are demons and devils too similar?

[Hussar]

I actually liked how Pathfinder tied demons to the seven cardinal sins: sloth (dretch), lust (succubus), wrath (vrock), greed (glaberzu), envy (maralith), gluttony (hezerou), and pride (balor). Other demons are variants on the theme. Gives them a whole "pain and suffering" vs. Wanton destruction theme.

THere's a very cool Paizo era Dragon magazine article on this as well. Very cool ideas.

 

[VelvetViolet]

So, would it make sense to picture the Neutral Evil Abaddon as a place caught between the armies of hell (devils) and hordes of the abyss (demons and daemons) with its own native Divs and Deomdands who follow their own goals and desires, unbound by a hierarchy and not seeking random destruction?

Yeah, the sourcebooks make some noise about demons being tied to the seven sins (and somehow all other fiends cannot, despite Rakshasa and Divs being described as men of wealth and taste), but in practice it turns out like this. Most of the fiends, when they aren't trying to conquer (devils) or satisfy their personal vices (rakshasa) or be prison culture in hell (demodands), are trying to destroy the universe or just ruin those who inhabit it. Honestly their alignments seem totally arbitrary at this point. Ultimately the evil alignments are selfishness, but each satisfies that selfishness in a different way.

Half the demons could be changed to neutral evil (chaotic tendencies) or neutral (chaotic evil tendencies) without really losing much.

 

[Shemeska]

And I don't really see that clear of a distinction between daemons and demons...

"While demons seek to pervert and destroy in endless unholy rampages and devils vex and enslave in hopes of corrupting morals, daemons seek only to consume mortal life itself."

"Four Horsemen... desire slaughter, ruin, and death on a cosmic scale, and drive hordes of their lesser kin to spread terror and sorrow across the planes."

And most of the descriptions seem to just be tied to different kinds of death (Astra=by negative energy drain, Ceusto=suicide, Dergho=insanity, Hydro=drowning, Leuko=plagues, Mela=starvation). Is it just that they're a bit too focused to be chaotic (only mortal life by a particular cause versus a generic rampage?)

I also don't see how their desire to "stand triumphant over cadaverous cosmoses and infinities of silence before also giving way to absolute oblivion" fits with the CRB description of NE. The NE "does whatever she can get away with... she is out for herself pure and simple".

On the other hand it seems to fit better with Jon Cogburn's description of CE in "D&D and Philosophy" were he notes it "is a path that ends in insanity and death" and "destroying everything, including herself."

So, I think I'd vote for moving the moving the daemons to the demon column.

I'll field an explanation here since I literally wrote the Pathfinder book on the daemons.

Daemons are a race of singularly selfish, self-interested entities united by a singular hunger and a rapacious, all-consuming hatred of mortals. The rest of the multiverse can do as it wishes, but in the end, all that matters is that in the wake of their hunger for mortal souls, the stars will have burnt out and only dead, lifeless, perfect husks orbit in silent purity. Daemons thirst for mortal souls, and they embody specific means of mortal death. They are the lost, confused, self-loathing creations of a reality grown sick of itself and begging for release.

Pain doesn't matter. Destruction doesn't matter. Rules, laws, and order doesn't matter. Only that you cease to exist.

They're NE, but it isn't a sane, mortal NE. It's the paradoxical juxtaposition of beings who covet and horde mortal souls and seek to glut themselves on this and to hell with any other pursuit, who desire only to slaughter mortals not for power or the pleasure but because of an eternal, unceasing compulsion and bottomless hatred, and yet these same creatures flock to unify under the banner of the Four Horsemen. They're a race of selfish, self-interested sociopaths who are nonetheless bitterly alone, lost, pitiable, and self-loathing due to the fact that they themselves emerge from mortal souls. And so like lost children they abase themselves to the Horsemen, obeying them like gods, unaware that the Four are just the same as them, worshiping, hating, adoring and feasting upon the Oinodaemon who they overthrew and usurped.

 

[Hussar]

Very cool.

 

[Kinak]

I actually liked how Pathfinder tied demons to the seven cardinal sins: sloth (dretch), lust (succubus), wrath (vrock), greed (glaberzu), envy (maralith), gluttony (hezerou), and pride (balor). Other demons are variants on the theme. Gives them a whole "pain and suffering" vs. Wanton destruction theme.

This is my go-to for Pathfinder demons.

Demons are the embodiment of individual sins to the exclusion of all else. Daemons are embodiments of specific deaths. And Devils are defined by their roles in Asmodeus's hierarchy.

Even the "lesser" options seem pretty distinct to me. Divs are dead genies with strange compulsions. Rakshasa are trapped in the cycle of reincarnation. Qlippoth are the eldest, usurped by demons and trying to set the universe "right." And Oni are spiritual counterparts to the things they possess, a dark reflection of the kami.

It'd get confusing if you tried to use all seven in a game, but the same applies to many types of monsters. It's like low-level humanoids, you just choose the two or three you want to feature and run with them.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[VelvetViolet]

What is stopping fiends of other alignments from being embodiments of sin or death? That's like saying only Archons can embody virtues and only Agathions can embody birth. All fiends were evil human souls who went to the lower planes and were reshaped into fiends (right out of Chinese mythology). Their alignment is a summation of how they relate to others, not their metaphysics.

There's really no reason why you couldn't have LE and CE fiends who personified ways to die or LE and NE fiends who personified vices. What differentiates them is their behavior: LE fiends can be negotiated with and will not suddenly betray you whenever convenient, CE fiends cannot be negotiated with or trusted for anything, and NE fiends can be negotiated with but will betray you when they get a better offer unless they personally like you.

EDIT: The Book of Fiends provides an excellent example of NE fiends who represent vice without falling in the "kill, maim, burn" MO of the demons. They're called daemons in the book, but you could substitute that for anything else; my personal favorite is "deveels."

 

[MarkB]

I do wonder if it'd be worth re-imagining demons and devils as evil gods' equivalent of angels. Have them be avatars and agents of the evil deities, rather than trying to build their own social structures.

 

[Starfox]

The relationship between gods and outsiders have always been a bit of a mess in DnD. Most gods are made to be polytheistic in feel, and don't really have a use for generic demons/devils/whatever. The monsters always felt more medieval Christianity than the gods did. Some examples: the god Pan is served by Fauns, Nymphs, and Selenes, not angels. The god Triton is served by Tritons, not elementals. And so on. The servant-spirits of polytheistic deities tend to be a lot more earthly and a lot more specific than demons/devlis etc.

In other words, if we want demons/devils/etc to be divine servants, we either have to change them around a lot, or re-make the gods a lot. Right now they are round pegs in square holes.

The same can be said for clerics btw - like the demons and devils, clerics always felt more pseudo-Christian than the gods.

 

[KL]

Maybe they should just lump them into one category: fiends. Regardless of type, those that lean toward Chaos are demons, those that lean toward Law are devils and so on...hence a lawful succubi is a devil, a chaotic succubi is a demon; a lawful glabrezu is a devil whereas a chaotic glabrezu is a demon. Lawful and chaotic fiends will have their own corresponding immunities and weaknesses.

 

[Desdichado]

Little thread necromancy... I'd say yes and no. They are the same concept. D&D has always tried to split them by virtue of the law/chaos axis. The law/chaos axis doesn't really gel with most people (in my experience), so the split tends to fail to be meaningful.

I prefer to have fiends all lumped together; demons, daemons, devils, demodands, oni, efreet, slaad; if they're ugly and likely to cause trouble, they're fiends, in my book. They tend to clump together in polities, much like barbarian warriors clump to a successful warlord. Because of this, they can also be at each other's throats as much as you need them to be, but I don't particularly worry about what "kind" of fiend they are, just if they make sense for what I need them for in any given situation.