Dungeon #148

[Jack of Shadows]

Wandering Monster: The Webbird, by Matt Conklin III - The webbird, a new monster, makes its debut here. This N, CR 1/2 aberration's main threat is that it mplants its eggs in its opponent's body. The article covers not only its stats, but its strategy and tactics, its ecology, and its treasure, along with Knowledge checks about it.

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Pretty sure these were originally in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Not sure if they're the same creature though but the name is the same.

Jack.

 

[James Jacobs]

Pretty sure these were originally in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Not sure if they're the same creature though but the name is the same.

Jack.

Yup; they're the same critters from Barrier Peaks, updated to 3.5.

 

[Nightfall]

*seven*

Tharen,

Eh 32 is going to have to be acceptable to me since they can't make Orcus higher than Demogorgon. (As much as some of us would like that.) So if they have a CR 33-34 version of Demogorgon, it's going to have be acceptable to me that Orcus is 32.

Btw you people already got your Graz'zt fix! Just learn to live with it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

since they can't make Orcus higher than Demogorgon. (As much as some of us would like that.)

Eh, it's not their fault that you're wrong.

Seriously, why would you want Orcus to be higher CR? Canon states that Orcus is, of all the demon lords, the closest to ascending to true godhood. Doesn't it make him a cooler character--isn't it more impressive--that he's reached that point without being the mightiest of demon lords?

 

[Razz]

Btw you people already got your Graz'zt fix! Just learn to live with it.

Bah. The only Graz'zt we got was the BoVD one, which is moot now, and the FCI version, which is a mere aspect of his true awesomeness. I want to see his Demonomicon version

 

[demiurge1138]

Eh, it's not their fault that you're wrong.

Seriously, why would you want Orcus to be higher CR? Canon states that Orcus is, of all the demon lords, the closest to ascending to true godhood. Doesn't it make him a cooler character--isn't it more impressive--that he's reached that point without being the mightiest of demon lords?

You, sir, are my hero.

Demiurge out.

 

[Nightfall]

*eight*

Ari,

I'm not saying I am in that camp so much as I'd like to raise the CR of ALL Demon Princes/Archfiends. But some of us don't get to make that decision.

I'm happy with what's done because it's done. That's happy enough for me.

 

[Shemeska]

Seriously, why would you want Orcus to be higher CR? Canon states that Orcus is, of all the demon lords, the closest to ascending to true godhood.

*shrugs* I never particularly cared for that line from the BoVD actually, because of the implication that godhood is something automatically more powerful than archfiend status, or that there's a race amongst abyssal lords to gain that like it's a race to the top. It doesn't mesh with a lot of history regarding the god/archfiend interaction, and Graz'zt for instance went out of his way to not cultivate the manner of following that would elevate him to godhood, because he didn't feel that the benefits were worth the drawbacks (and liabilities) such status accorded.

And of course, different designers have presented that god/fiend issue in at times very different light depending on their perspective on the issue (I'd fall heavily on the side of saying that both true divinity and archfiend status are very different beasts, and while you can be both, they have seperate spheres of influence in which one outranks the other for most purposes).

We're in a bit of a pickle though, because of the actual deific status of some of the abyssal lords pre-3e, and 3e's early stripping of that status with the BoVD (which makes the events of 'Dead Gods'... awkward...). FC:I actually did a pretty swift job reconciling that BoVD retcon with past material by allowing the archfiends to grant spells to worshippers without having to become divine in the process, allowing folks to keep them seperate from gods (and presenting the stats as aspects/avatars just made me happy).

 

[Tharen the Damned]

Eh, it's not their fault that you're wrong.

Seriously, why would you want Orcus to be higher CR? Canon states that Orcus is, of all the demon lords, the closest to ascending to true godhood. Doesn't it make him a cooler character--isn't it more impressive--that he's reached that point without being the mightiest of demon lords?

As I said, I am happy with CR 32 and I like having a wide range of CRs for him.
I wonder if we will see his "official" ascend to godhood (again)?
I can't remember isn't he already a god in "Ghostwalk"?

Regarding Shemeskas' post I have a question for all: What is the difference between Demonprince/Archfiend status and godhood for you?

For me godhood is the trancendence from corporality to spirit. A god is not bound to a body or material form. His essence is pure spirit that can materialize. Destroying this corporal form does not kill the god.
Demonlords and Archfiends are to some degree still bound to a material form. Somewhere out there is the body of Asmodeus. His essence bound into the flesh. Destroy the corporal form and you may well destroy Asmodeus*.

*of course Asmodeus will have a lot of contingencies in effect that you have to circumvent or destroy.

 

[Ripzerai]

What is the difference between Demonprince/Archfiend status and godhood for you?

Gods are tied to their worshipers, while archfiends (and archcelestials, archmodrons, etc.) are tied to their planes of existence. Archfiends thus work on a bigger scale, in most cases, representing infinite swathes of real estate where gods represent finite groups of the faithful. This doesn't mean archfiends are more powerful, but they're certainly vaster - to some degree, they and the planar layers under their control are one. A divine realm, which has a similar connection to its owner, is a more finite thing, although it may seem endless from within. Divine realms also have no real connection to the plane on which they're hosted.

Deities don't truly personify their alignments as archfiends do. Cyric, Nerull, Incabulos, and Tiamat are all evil, but the General of Gehenna is Evil Itself. Hextor is lawful evil, but Asmodeus is Malign Order Incarnate. If Asmodeus were to die, his associated alignment would be shaken, fragmented; lawful evil items and races everywhere thrown into confusion and disarray until a new being stepped into Asmodeus' place.

A being can certainly be both; Lolth is both god and archdemon, for example, as is (I remain convinced) Baphomet, Demogorgon, Yeenoghu, Kostchtchie, and Sess'inek due to their substantial worshiper bases. Graz'zt, Pale Night, Lynkhab, Fraz-Urb'luu, Alzrius, and so on are only archdemons, and Orcus lost his divinity during the course of his resurrection.

Graz'zt, at least, seems to actively avoid divinity, seeing gods as pawns for him to manipulate, not beings of equal merit to respect, and certainly not something for him to strive to become. When he had Waukeen under his power, he asked her not to grant her divinity to him but to his daughter. Rather than insist the xvarts worship him, he permitted his servant Raxivort to become a lesser god under the power of their prayers (Raxivort nearly wrested control of Azzagrat from him, which would have made him an Abyssal lord as well as a god, but Graz'zt managed to hold onto his throne despite Raxivort's power). His son Iuz, a demigod, is also something he seeks to control and direct; when Iuz became a demigod through the power of the Soul Husks and the worship of his followers, Graz'zt didn't seem concerned with doing the same.

Archfiends might well be limited in some respects to vulnerable bodies, although in 1e they had "demon amulets" that protected their essences in the same way as lich phylacteries. In Dead Gods the PCs have a chance to find Orcus' amulet, but it's noted that now that he's a god (as he was at the time, albeit an undead one) it has no power over him. Being a god was also what gave Orcus the chance of coming back at all; if he had remained a "mere" archfiend, the Abyss would have simply swallowed him up when Kiaransalee slew him on his home plane. This is likely why beings like Orcus and Demogorgon bothered with divinity, Orcus seeking cultists among the necromancers of Trask and Narfell and Inuitea (from the Ghostwalk campaign) to become a deity, big and flashy and obvious. Demogorgon sowed his seeds among the ixitxachitl and kopru and troglodytes, the mad dakons and Olmans and ur-Flan, and became a lesser deity as well. Graz'zt has his cultists among witches and lamias, but he prefers a subtler path. He redirects divinity when he finds it, remaining hidden in the shadows between. Even so, he manages to have as big a power base as his divine rivals. He's not the only archfiend to feel this way, either - yugoloths find divinity abhorrent as a rule, and I don't see beings like Pale Night or Rhyxali bothering with it any time soon. I'm convinced that this is because godhood, for a being who already personifies part of the cosmos, is as much a burden as an asset.