Devils should be beneath Shadowfell

[ferratus]

I don't like that the Nine Hells are an astral domain. If the devils are going to be the agents responsible for humanity's damnation from now on, they should be less on the periphery. The best location for devils would be entombed beneath Shadowfell. Since they are already hungering for human souls to increase their power, and undead are considered to be halfway to absolute damnation anyway, what better place for them?

Plus, I get to put a grim god of death in my campaign who judges the guilty and unrepentant by opening a crack in the earth and casting the damned soul down. A classic image.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I think that'd be too setting-restrictive.

However, having devils roaming the Shadowfell looking for souls? That I like.

 

[William Ronald]

I think that'd be too setting-restrictive.

However, having devils roaming the Shadowfell looking for souls? That I like.

I would suspect that some deities will collect their worshippers, depending on the afterlife of each faith. (So, worshippers of the Norse pantheon would end up either in Valhalla or Niflheim for the most part. (I seem to recall the Eddas mentioning Gimli as a hall for the righteous.) )

 

[Stone Dog]

Why is this not possible? Why not have infernal contracts give the ability to pull the bound souls from the shadow through fissures just like you want? Personally, I'd leave most of the standard wicked souls to be diverted to Hel's domain or Nerull or whoever, but leave devils the task of temptations and contracts. No god wants souls to go to the Nine Hells. Evil gods want their due as well as virtuous gods and the devils steal souls from everybody.

 

[frankthedm]

Why is this not possible? Why not have infernal contracts give the ability to pull the bound souls from the shadow through fissures just like you want? Personally, I'd leave most of the standard wicked souls to be diverted to Hel's domain or Nerull or whoever, but leave devils the task of temptations and contracts. No god wants souls to go to the Nine Hells. Evil gods want their due as well as virtuous gods and the devils steal souls from everybody.

The final destination of souls, good or bad, is supposed to be “beyond all ken”. That’s unknown to even the gods. The is no guaranteed reward for the virtuous, no guaranteed punishment for the wicked. Just a great big middle finger for those who expect Justice that looks like a question mark for those who just want to know what happens. The idea of contracts bringing souls to hell, is a fine one, but It does not sound like 4e gods have the souls of their worshippers funneled to their realms as a default.

 

[Scribble]

Not sure I think it should be their homeworld... I think the idea is to give DMs an alternate plane to work with that isn't THAT dangerous...

I think I could see letting the Devils have an easier time accessing the Shadowfell though.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't like that the Nine Hells are an astral domain. If the devils are going to be the agents responsible for humanity's damnation from now on, they should be less on the periphery. The best location for devils would be entombed beneath Shadowfell. Since they are already hungering for human souls to increase their power, and undead are considered to be halfway to absolute damnation anyway, what better place for them?

That's not too unlike how I've done it. My pantheon is a bunch of very transparently slightly renamed demon lords and archdevils. Bel is the god of war, for example. Dagon the god of the Sea. Imix the god of the sun. Urkas the god of death. Yinigu the god of nature. Etc.

My cosmology and cosmological history is that at some point in the past, these archfiends won some major battle "beyond the fields we know" and the entire world and it's "planar neighborhood" is under "lockdown."

I had a coterminous plane that was not unlike the Fugue Plane combined with the Plane of Shadow, ergo, very similar to the Shadowfell, and the only destinations you can reach from there are various Hell Courts. Basically, the fiefdom of the individual archfiends and their courts, so the equivalent of a single layer of Hell or of the Abyss.

I did away with a lot of the fluff distinctions between fiends; demons, devils, yugoloths, demodands, heck, even efreet and slaad are all considered fiends under my cosmology and may freely intermingle. Any given court can have any mix and match of fiends that the Fiendlord happens to like around him. In the Plane of Shadow, you can find tons of undead; people trying to cheat death and linger. You can find fiends patrolling the area, looking for anyone they can bargain with to come to their hells for good and also, therefore, cheat death by becoming a larval fiend and possibly growing up to be a major player in the Courts of Hell. They also tend to hunt those who try to escape from the Hells, or simply those who don't belong or don't look like they can take care of themselves. It's a pretty wild and wooly frontier kinda place.

So, in many ways, not unlike your idea at all. Not unlike the direction 4e seems to be going either, although I'm going considerably farther than they are, especially in terms of lumping fiendish types together, at least in terms of fluff.

 

[heirodule]

I think that'd be too setting-restrictive.

However, having devils roaming the Shadowfell looking for souls? That I like.

Aww, cmon. You mean you can avoid damnation your whole life only to get caught in the afterworld?

 

[Stone Dog]

The final destination of souls, good or bad, is supposed to be “beyond all ken”. That’s unknown to even the gods. The is no guaranteed reward for the virtuous, no guaranteed punishment for the wicked. Just a great big middle finger for those who expect Justice that looks like a question mark for those who just want to know what happens. The idea of contracts bringing souls to hell, is a fine one, but It does not sound like 4e gods have the souls of their worshippers funneled to their realms as a default.

Which makes the contract more terrifying actually. You never know for sure what will or won't happen when you die, but if you are tempted to make an infernal pact then you can be certain of being dragged to the Hells when you pass on!

 

[Desdichado]

Which makes the contract more terrifying actually. You never know for sure what will or won't happen when you die, but if you are tempted to make an infernal pact then you can be certain of being dragged to the Hells when you pass on!

At least it's an existence! Maybe you can advance (like they do now) too; you don't know if there's even any existance at all otherwise. You might just return to eternal oblivion.