Demon Lords. You use 'em?

[JoeGKushner]

Very cool. I love hearing stuff like this, considering that article is head-and-shoulders my favorite above all others I've published in Dragon.

I won't ask you to hijack the thread--unless you feel that doing so is still relevant to the original discussion--but if you'd be so kind as to PM or e-mail me, I'd love to hear how your players responded to Turaglas and his cult and cronies.

Hijack! Not really as it's still about demon lords. That was your article eh? My players hate you!

On a different note though, to be honest, they actually heard about a lot of stuff in this direction before they meet any of the cultists. As a large part of my early campaign was played in the Moonsea (?) region, where Zhentil Keep, Phlan, Hillsfar and other mean regions are, I started off with the players hearing about many of the nobles and notable lords being gifted with powerful weapons. Yes, the Fangs of Turaglas. One of those so gifted was a player's father who was a barbarian, second only to the chief, who eventually turned that whole tribe, the Stone Crows, over to worship of Turaglas.

Here I turned to the Deluxe Book of Templates as they have an Ebon Servitor Template and I figured, Ebon Maw, Ebon Servitor right? The players have had several encounters with the barbarians with the template. The evil forces were soon crushed and fled to their native homeland in the Unapproachable East.

Seems that these proud barbarians were actually members of the Nar who were chased out of there many moons ago and gave up their demon worshipping ways until introduced to good old Turaglas!

The players have slowly been working their way to collecting some of the swords, but to be honest, a lot of that has been going on in the background. People like Elminster aren't going to just sit around while a demon lord is freed.

 

[Pants]

The question is: Are your demon lords gods or not?

Nope. In fact, in the current game I'm running, there is only one 'god;' an Overdeity. The rest of the gods are merely REALLY powerful outsiders. There are the Slaad Lords, the Celestial Lords (who in some fashion or another serve the Overdeity), the Archdevils, the Demon Lords, the Altrodaemons, a group of powerful Couatls, plus other quasi-deity powers. I'm using ideas from Sepulchrave's campaign that the Fiend Lords are nearly indistinguishable from deities while in their lairs. Outside of their lairs, they are just really, really tough.

 

[Steel_Wind]

My last camapign had the party defeat a Dragon possessed by DemoGorgon, but I rarely ever throw them against demon lords and princes.

o_0

Oh man. You are soooo busted now.

/me keys in "DragonLancer's a powergamer DM" DragonLanceforums.com macro

 

[Nightfall]

Orcus is ALWAYS significant. After all, he's the guy at the end of Rappan Athuk.

 

[Desdichado]

Hey, Ari or Joe -- what issue of Dragon is that?

 

[Mystery Man]

Seconded. Dragon number please?

Any time you mention an article and don't give the issue number you should be slapped silly.

 

[Emperor Valerian]

They appear, sometimes, in my campaign world. The last campaign I ran revolved around a staff that had Graz'zt imprisoned inside of it. At the end of the campaign, the players had to get rid of the staff in the Abyss, all the while trying to keep it from devils, Orcus or Demogorgon (not to mention GRaz'zts underlings eager to capitalize on their leader's misfortune).

A character went bonkers over the mess. I call that a success

 

[obiwanchunn]

I use 'em for one shots, really. I like the idea of them, but I agree that actually using them feels a bit cliched. Which is why using them for one-shots, where the cliche is a shortcut to get to the action, is a great idea.

I don't know how using demon lords, arch devils, et cetera, is any more cliché than using drow, kobolds, dwarves or beholders. Most DnD monsters have some kinda baggage with them, and that allows the players some kind of connection with the game world. I greatly dislike monsters that have *no* baggage and can't be used in a cliché -- i.e. "You see a sparkly hrsixlix'n'ta'ta lurch around the corner..." That does nothing for me or my players.

Unique critters are great if you respect them in the game and don't expect them to be party fodder.

In the last couple of years I have used the following unique critters (no way I can spell these dudes correctly):

Demon Lord Jubilex (always gets the shaft and is made the weakest demon lord in all write ups. My personal fav, however.)
His Book of Vile Darkness servant: Darkness Given Hunger (who ate our halfling barbarian like a cartoon cat eats a fish.) Good name BTW on that baddie.
Demon Lord Demogorgon - Brokering a real-estate deal with the group’s antagonist. One mission for our group was to bring down Demogorgon's property value.
Dispater – Two of our group drew enmity from him with a Deck of Many Things. One of their souls works in Dispater’s gift wrapping department. (It’s so hard to come up with truly horrible stuff for a soul to toil in for eternity wish – I figure retail is the closest thing here on Earth.)
Erathaol, the Seer from the Book of Exalted Deeds (love the angel lords – though I wish they had more “baggage”. Most of my party were like “who?!?” when Erathaol showed up with a plan to corner the Adamantium market.)

None of these guys have even come close to being killed or even attacked by my group. They are good flavor, though if I gave them a chance at Jubilex, they’d take it. They hate that blob more than anything.

 

[Edward Kann@StoryART]

What about running a turn around plot line where the player characters are all villains and they are trying to discover which of the major demon lords has made a deal to do a betrayal on the bad guys and join the forces of good?

Maybe said secret traitor has stolen some massive hoo doo evil artifact that when removed from (insert plane of choice) robs the remaining demons of their powers, potentially handing permanent victory over to the forces of law, or good or what have you.

Various demon factions could be trying their hardest to back stab one another and grab the artifact for themselves creating all sorts of problems for the evil player characters who are just trying to do their work.

I have not run anything with demons or devils in it for D&D or fantasy. Now horror games, that is another story completely.

 

[Khayman]

Yep. My tiefling and his litter-mates are all descended from Grazz't. Only 81 generations left to go and then we'll put the boots to the grand-sire. The old berk.