D&D Armageddon - Blood Wars End, Sigil Falls to Seige

[Desdichado]

Yep. That's canon. And if it slows up the story, about the fiends overrunning the universe, it should be instantly ignored, and no amount of complaining by the by-the-bookers should change the author's mind. Sigil and the Lady of Pain have always been heavy-handed plot devices anyway, so changing them matters not a whit.

In fact, if I were running a campaign like this, I wouldn't even feel compelled to come up with an explanation immediately. I'd leave it a mystery; if the PCs have no way of knowing how, exactly, the fiends took over the city, then the players don't get to know either, and they don't even get to know whether /I/ know or not

This lets them think you've come up with something really evil and earthshattering, and nothing can scare players more than the plot twists they dream up in their own heads.

Preach it, brother!

Besides, whoever said this was part of the Planescape setting? Sigil exists in vanilla D&D thanks to 3rd edition.

And any player that hit me with these arguments would be tossed. No player knows more about the world I'm running than I do, obviously.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

The later 2e Guide to Hell went off in a much different direction from Planescape w/ regards to a number of things, and gets bludgeoned most often for its radical re-interpretation of Asmodeus. It's not so much that re-interpretation that I don't care for, but the total removal of all of the mystery surrounding Asmo. I rather like the idea of his form being a projected avatar of another hidden, massive form. However I didn't care for the whole 2 serpents of law thing which was at odds with previous material, and the whole Ahriman and unbelief thing, that pushed it too out there for my liking.

Would you care to elaborate on Asmo? He is one of my favorite bad guys and I never did get a look at any of the books you mentioned.

 

[Shemeska]

Would you care to elaborate on Asmo? He is one of my favorite bad guys and I never did get a look at any of the books you mentioned.

Very roughly here:

Planescape: The Baernaloths were essentially the chosen servitors of abstract evil and were pushed out onto the newly formed planes where they created the Yugoloths as their children and servants. The Yugoloths purged themselves of chaos and law, and those fragments were pushed into the first mortal derived larvae upon the planes which became the first Tanar'ri and Baatezu. They were herded to the Abyss and Baator respectively. The newly made Baatezu somehow overwhelmed the Ancient Baatorians. No mention of Asmo during this time, though it is speculated that the Lords of the Nine, the original/oldest ones, may be either the warped (by law or chaos) Yugoloths that herded the early Baatezu to Baator, or they may be the strongest of those first Baatezu.

Asmodeus is never described beyond being utterly in charge of Baator, the rest of the plane living in fear and marching in lockstep to his manipulations and orders. The paragon of tyranny, the prince of darkness. His name is never actually mentioned since that little is commonly known of him outside of Baator.



GtH: Asmodeus is a fallen greater deity who spawns Pit Fiends from his blood. No mention of the earlier PS material here. Asmodeus is now said to be one of the creators of the planes, one of the so called twin serpents of law. He along with Jazirian the goddess of coatls create the planes or help mold them into shape then have a falling out, she's LG, he's LE. He loses and plummets to Baator.

While being a greater deity he gains no power from worship but gains power actively from disbelief. We're told that if you die faithless you go straight to the 9th layer of hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200, regardless of alignment. This reinterpretation of Asmo collectively pisses off a large number of folks. Other folks think it's the coolest thing since Chef Boyardee made cheese ravioli.


In order to reconcile the two drastically different tales, Asmo has to be altered slightly from the GtH incarnation. It is possible however, and that's a take that I use. I don't use the twin serpents of law idea however, I don't like it, nor do I feel it makes enough sense when compared with the other material out there. Jazirian doesn't even reside in Chronias the Illuminated Heaven which is typically cast as the diametric opposite of Nessus and Asmodeus, which GtH tries to make her. *shrugs*

 

[Felon]

And any player that hit me with these arguments would be tossed. No player knows more about the world I'm running than I do, obviously.

While I don't dispute that a DM's authority is final, I do have to say it must be nice to have so many players clamouring to play your game that you can let your authority go to your head like that. Players are not to be taken for granted. [/shrug]

Having said that, I've been wondering if anyone's made the suggestion that instead of having the demons/devils take out the Lady, that the Lady herself becomes the architect of armageddon. If anyone has the power, knowledge, and resources to unite the tanari and baaetzu [sic] and wage war on the entire cosmos, it's probably her. She's omnipotent in Sigil, but not beyond that city's borders, right? So, she needs a few billion evil minions to work her will. If she's so utterly mysterious, then her motives are hardly inscrutable.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

While being a greater deity he gains no power from worship but gains power actively from disbelief. We're told that if you die faithless you go straight to the 9th layer of hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200, regardless of alignment. This reinterpretation of Asmo collectively pisses off a large number of folks. Other folks think it's the coolest thing since Chef Boyardee made cheese ravioli.

Going with Dante's Inferno I always thought the ninth layer of hell was reserved for betrayers... not disbelievers unless disbelief is considered the highest form of betrayal (which I guess it could be seen as such).

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Jazirian doesn't even reside in Chronias the Illuminated Heaven which is typically cast as the diametric opposite of Nessus and Asmodeus, which GtH tries to make her. *shrugs*

Sorry for the back to back posts but something occured to me as I hit the post button. Couldn't the Lady of Pain in fact be Jazirian? It certainly seems like something that one of the shapers of reality would do. Her word in Sigil is law and is absolute. As the paragon of Lawful Good wouldn't that mean that possibly in her mind the utmost form of Lawful Good would be Liberty and Freedom. Even the good gods exert their will upon their followers for selfish reasons (D&D gods are not perfect) and that isn't freedom. Maybe she became the Lady to provide a place where true freedom and liberty exist. Sigil is the only place where a being can truly be free of the influence of the gods or any other controlling entity. Seeing what she does to people who pray to her it seems strangely similar to the idea of Asmodeus getting power from non-believers. Maybe both get weaker from the power of belief.

Things that make you go Hmmmmmm....

 

[Shemeska]

Sorry for the back to back posts but something occured to me as I hit the post button. Couldn't the Lady of Pain in fact be Jazirian? It certainly seems like something that one of the shapers of reality would do. Her word in Sigil is law and is absolute. As the paragon of Lawful Good wouldn't that mean that possibly in her mind the utmost form of Lawful Good would be Liberty and Freedom. Even the good gods exert their will upon their followers for selfish reasons (D&D gods are not perfect) and that isn't freedom. Maybe she became the Lady to provide a place where true freedom and liberty exist. Sigil is the only place where a being can truly be free of the influence of the gods or any other controlling entity. Seeing what she does to people who pray to her it seems strangely similar to the idea of Asmodeus getting power from non-believers. Maybe both get weaker from the power of belief.

Things that make you go Hmmmmmm....

Jazirian is pretty distinct as a deity on Mount Celestia, and there's nothing about The Lady that screams Lawful Good. Or either lawful, or good even. I don't recall which layer it's on, but Jazirian has a domain upon Celestia as I recall.

That's something you could go with, I just don't see it as workable within the framework of knowledge we have concerning The Lady and the much more known figure of Jazirian (from the perspective of a planar Jazirian is more accessible certainly than The Lady, and has an entire planar race devoted to her in the Coatle (sp?))

 

[Calico_Jack73]

The perspective of a planar Jazirian is more accessible certainly than The Lady, and has an entire planar race devoted to her in the Coatle

Hmmm... you know, the Lady DOES have an Aztec look to her. Maybe she created the Coatle in the past just like Asmodeus creates Pit Fiends?

 

[Beard in the Sky]

Sigil exists in vanilla D&D thanks to 3rd edition.

A little off topic, but does anyone use the City of Union described in the ELHB? I am just curious, because I teach in a small town called Union and everytime I even think about that name as an epic level city, I just about lose it.

 

[Orius]

I don't use the twin serpents of law idea however, I don't like it, nor do I feel it makes enough sense when compared with the other material out there. Jazirian doesn't even reside in Chronias the Illuminated Heaven which is typically cast as the diametric opposite of Nessus and Asmodeus, which GtH tries to make her. *shrugs*

I adapted the idea for my own cosmology. Dumping the "all athiests go to Hell" bit from GtH, I too the Jazirian/Asmodeus angle and expanded it. Originally, when the Outer Planes formed, there were the Elder Gods. This was a time before the alignments fractured and became separate. The ruler of the Elder Gods was a serpent entity called the Ouroboris. However, eventually, the alignments separated, and this fractured the Ouroboris into 5 separate beings, each representing the 4 extreme alignments and neutrality. So Jazirian and Asmodeus are the lawful good and lawful evil fragments of the Ouroboris. I don't know what the two chaotic elements are, though I've toyed with the idea that the yuan-ti god Merrshaulk might be the chaotic evil fragment. The neutral element is the Serpent, introduced in DVD, and later mentioned in MotP. After this split, there was a great war among the Elder Gods. I don't have a definitive number for them, for many of them ended up going off to the Far Realm or something. However, in this cosmology, the Lady of Pain is one of the Elder Gods, as is the overgod that created my campaign world.