Changes to Devils and Demons

[Just Another User]

Yeah, in function but not in form. There were no real reason why most fiends looked how they looked, and unless you knew the specific type of fiend you couldn't say, on seeing one, if it was a tanar'ri, yugoloth, baatezu, or other miscellaneous fiend family.

In short, if you take a, say, Paelirion, should that be a devil or a demon? Or maybe a daemon? A particularly ugly Slaad?

I fail to see why this should be better.
There is some reason why you/your character should be inherently able to take apart a demon from a devil at first sight (without the right skills)?

 

[Jared Rascher]

The original MotP came out in 1987... nearly 10 years after the AD&D PHB (1978)! So please don't try to imply that this book is closely tied to the core of 1E D&D.

Yeah, I guess I'm not a real player either, since I didn't start playing until 1984 . . .

 

[Traycor]

I very much like this change. My players were always very much confused with the differences between Devils and Demons. No matter how I explained it, they still considered the two as basically the same thing.

Now it will be easy to make a distinction.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

Yeah, I guess I'm not a real player either, since I didn't start playing until 1984 . . .

Since you are capable of typing, clearly you are real. And since you come to EN World, I can safely assume you play the game.

Thus it is my conclusion that you are indeed a "real player."

-----Back on Topic-----

You asserted that because TSR released the Manual of the Planes, there is an implied 'cementing' of this milieu to the core game (PHB/DMG/MM). This is simply not true.

The Great Wheel was an option given in an appendix; voluntary campaign fluff.

Over the years TSR released several supplements/campaign settings with wildly different cosmological assumptions, including Deities & Demigods/Legends & Lore, Lankhmar, and Mystara... all this before they got around to making MotP. Even after that, TSR continued to release more CSs that eschewed the Great Wheel (Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms).

So basically, the TSR product line reveals that D&D does not have an 'official' cosmology. D&D assumes each DM will choose or make a cosmology that suits them, and the Great Wheel is merely the oldest one they've offered. It has no intrinsic ties to actually playing the game, and is thus disposable.

Since WotC is now in charge, they can do as they please, and this new demon/devil change reflects that. I understand the grief of Planescapers, but it appears that is a cross WotC is willing to bear.

I've never used the Wheel myself, therefore it is not sarosanct. This announced restructuring seems reasonable, therefore I applaud it.

 

[tubbs]

Devil comes from an old Indo-European root for "god" (compare "divine", "diva", "deva", etc.); demon comes from the Greek word for "spirit". Which may be why "the Devil" is more often used than "the Demon" to refer to Satan, and why "demons" is more often used than "devils" to refer to minor denizens of Hell. "Devil" implies a greater power than "demon."

Not so much.

They both come from old Indo-European, and they both come from Greek. In Greek, 'diabolus' meant "accuser" or "slanderer", and this sense fit nicely with the judeo-christian notion of Satan. That's how you get "the Devil". He slandered god, and there was only one of him.

Per the OED, however, there doesn't seem to be any relationship between 'devil' and any of the words you reference, e.g. 'deva', from Sanskrit, from the postulated root *div, "to shine".

'Diabolus' comes from 'dia', meaning 'through' (as in dia-gram) and 'bellein', "to cast". The 'v' seems to have come in with the borrowing of the word by Latin.

You're right that 'demon' meant a spirit inferior to gods in Greek.

The rest of it's folk etymology, however.

 

[Jared Rascher]

Let me rephrase this, because it was never my intention to say that something does or does not have to be part of the game for the game to be D&D. That's not actually my point. My point is that the Great Wheel, as it stands, has a certain history, and has a certain way that it works, and that has been in place since 1987, although aspects of it were brought in much earlier.

My point is that I think it runs contrary to the spirit of something established in the game to alter it fundamentally. The Great Wheel is based on the four axis of alignment, but if you mess with that, change its history, and still use the same name, you do start to undermine some of this history of the game.

To clarify, if 4th edition didn't want to have a set cosmology, or wanted to create a whole new cosmology or just refer to "the lower planes" or "the upper planes" it would be much different than using the same names for various groups on the planes and the planes themselves, and then fundamentally change them.

As to the Forgotten Realms having a separate cosmology, well, taht's a recent development. While I'm sure Ed Greenwood didn't use the Great Wheel in the stories he was writing before it was a published setting, it pretty clear right from the start that it was used as soon as it was a D&D setting, and I even remember Ed's "Down to Earth Divinity" article where he advoctes the need for places like Acheron so that gods like Bane would have a home without getting involved in Hell's politics.

So I guess I would mind that much if the "generic" material in 4th edition just referred to demons/devil/yugoloths as fiends from the lower planes, and left it to the individual campaign settings to set up the divisions and history between them (in fact, such an approach would be ideal for a setting like Krynn where there is indeed no Blood War and little point to distinguishing between devils and demons).

Also, I strongly suspect that "eladrin" is going to now mean what aasimar meant before, which seems to imply that there may be no "chaotic good" celestial organization in 4th edition, with most of the celestials falling under the purview of angels. Again, if they had changed the aasimar's name without using an established name, I think it would work better for the "generic" mean that 4th edition should be setting up with its implied setting.

 

[WhatGravitas]

So I guess I would mind that much if the "generic" material in 4th edition just referred to demons/devil/yugoloths as fiends from the lower planes, and left it to the individual campaign settings to set up the divisions and history between them (in fact, such an approach would be ideal for a setting like Krynn where there is indeed no Blood War and little point to distinguishing between devils and demons).

The best thing about such a generic setting: It opens up the way for a "Great Wheel Campaign Book"... so... is this a step for the return of the Great Wheel with Sigil (aka Planescape)? Or for Greyhawk?

Both would be awesome!

Cheers, LT.

 

[EATherrian]

If you prefer the old fluff, is there a problem I'm not seeing in keeping it for your own campaign? I don't see any negative consequences for doing so, but I may be missing something.

Well, they did just invalidate two of their best books, the Fiendish Codices. As someone who enjoys the history of D&D itself, this just strikes me as odd. Looks like poor Malcanthet and Castle Maure are going to have their stories rocked.

 

[EATherrian]

If you can say that, I can only conclude that you have never read a single line of fluff on evil outsiders from either the Planescape setting, or the 3.x planar books (including the two Fiendish Codices).

Or actually read Moorcock, where most of the alignment divisions were taken from. In a magical world where Law and Chaos are real sources of power, the alignments actually take on a meaning.

 

[Klaus]

double post