Elemental Princes of Evil / Archomentals

[BOZ]

Ogremoch is also mentioned in one of Salvatore's books, along with his "good" counterpart, whose name was, I believe, Entemoch (or something like that)...

...but I can't remember which one!

...interesting...

 

[diaglo]

Did I mention that sometimes I love my job?

well if we are talking about the dukes and such. don't forget to read the novel Rod of Seven Parts by Doug Niles 1995.
and the boxed set by Skip Williams Aug. 1996

 

[Alzrius]

That said, I'm not intimately familiar with the Guide to the Inner Planes, so it's possible that existing material conflicts with this in some way.

Likewise, I'm more familiar with the Planescape material than the Greyhawk exclusive material on the subject.

And, by the Rule of Threes, I'm familiar with both.

It conflicts with stuff. The whole mythos of the Wind Dukes versus the Queen of Chaos etc seems to have been restricted to a number (though perhaps a large number) of prime material worlds and overall it was but a fragment of or an extension of the Blood War.

That doesn't make it conflict. The Blood War has been going since the tanar'ri and baatezu first knew of each other, but that doesn't mean that all wars involving planar being are a subset of it, or are lesser in scope. Just look at the ancient war between the Far Realm beings and the early gods of Greyhawk (see "Quadripartite" in Dungeon #99 for more on that).

That said, the planar "law vs. chaos" aspect does seem to place it somewhat near the Blood War in terms of themes. Perhaps the Queen of Chaos realized before any other Abyssal Lords that the Prime would become so important (perhaps she even knew that the forthcoming mortals would be what would swell fiendish ranks later). Maybe she knew that if Aaqa were to know of the Blood War, they'd throw in with the baatezu, unbalancing things. Maybe she just wanted out of the Abyss and thought the Prime would be a nice place to set up kip.

Either way, given how the Empire of Aaqa was already there, and how some Archomentals threw in (such as Ogremoch), it's clear this isn't just a little part of the Blood War.

 

[Alzrius]

Ogremoch is also mentioned in one of Salvatore's books, along with his "good" counterpart, whose name was, I believe, Entemoch (or something like that)...

...but I can't remember which one!

Siege of Darkness, near the end of chapter 12.

 

[Erik Mona]

I must admit that the Blood War is not my favorite bit of D&D lore. Frankly, I'd rather have demons fighting angels instead of demons and devils always fighting each other. But no matter. It is fact.

Is it established within the D&D lore (Planescape, etc.) that the Blood War ever encompassed more than just fiends?

--Erik
http://www.superunicorn.com/erik

 

[Alzrius]

Is it established within the D&D lore (Planescape, etc.) that the Blood War ever encompassed more than just fiends?

Heavens yes. The Hellbound boxed set deals with this the most. Basically, the Upper Planes are divided on the Blood War idea; the archons favor the baatezu, the eladrin favor the tanar'ri, etc.

Beyond the alignment lines, there are some other breakdowns. Some celestials think that the fiends are doing a great job killing each other, and actually supply them with arms (though most frown on this). Others think that the best they can do is to keep the Blood War contained to the Lower Planes, where only the people who deserve it will die.

Virtually no one among the Upper Planes really thinks they can end the Blood War by annihilating the forces of evil, though. Long ago, the combined forces of the Upper Planes invaded the Lower Planes. For the first time, the fiends united to fight back...and the celestials were resoundingly crushed (supposedly only 3,000 were left); that's when the celestials first decided to just eliminate one side, and they disagreed over which.

Warriors of Heaven also has some details in this regard.

http://www.superunicorn.com/erik/

By the way Erik, you should lay off the Dr. Pepper. I've heard that guy isn't a real doctor.

 

[coriolis]

The Planescape archomentals (evil & good) are also mentioned on the last page of Defenders of the Faith. IIRC, it says that they are not true deities and cannot grant spells. However, in the list of 'monster' deities, you will notice a mention of Kulthiere (sp) as the god of salamanders and efreets. Sounds like Imix to me...

IMC, I play a cleric of Zaaman Rul. I've developped his write-up a bit to include positive aspects of fire, which was an interesting challenge. The only problem is that unlike Imix/Kulthiere, he has no iconic worshippers. I've therefore imagined a good-aligned splinter group of azers, along with half-elemental sphinxes, and inferities and penneroths from Green Ronin's Avatar Handbook.

 

[Shade]

Ever since I read this passage in the Manual of the Planes, regarding the General of Gehenna's base of operations...

The Crawling City itself, in all the millenia of its existence, has never directly entered the Blood War. Ancient prophecies tell that should it ever do so, the Blood War will finally reach a decisive conclusion in an apocalyptic final battle.

...I've wondered why the celestials don't encourage him to do so.

Erik - Have you tried Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper? It has made me its thrall. It's like adding the axiomatic and celestial templates to a nymph. Sweet perfection.

 

[Shemeska]

Is it established within the D&D lore (Planescape, etc.) that the Blood War ever encompassed more than just fiends?

--Erik
http://www.superunicorn.com/erik

In addition to what Alzrius said:

During the early stages of the war there were non fiend origin deities that got involved in the conflict. Initially the Tanar'ri had various deities of chaos on their side, and for a time they were almost unstoppable. Then the Baatezu convinced more and more deities of law to join on their behalf and it swung back to a stalemate again. But then something happened. Every deity involved began to notice that their divine essence was starting to fray at the edges, to diminish ever so slightly at a constant rate. And then a deity of chaos simply died without obvious reason. Fearing the same happening to them, every deity withdrew from active participation in the Blood War, and it's been that way since.

We don't know why it happened, though its been suggested that one or more of the fiend races didn't appreciate deities fighting in 'their' war and began a wholesale slaughter of mortal worshippers on the prime material. Or it might have been just something about the nature of the planes themselves, nobody knows.

With the celestials and their involvement:

There's evidence to suggest that at some point the Archons and Aasimon/Angels of LG deities were at war with the Ancient Baatorians who predated the creation of the Baatezu. Some of those ancients can be dimly seen, frozen within the glaciers of Cania along with Archons and Aasimon fighting them, and bizarre cities presumed to have been created by that ancient race.

Since the disaster of the Archon and Aasimon crusade into the Blood War in which they took on all three sides at once, only to have them all turn as one on them, the upper planes have taken either a large role or a direct role, but never both. Some covertly supply the fiends with information or weapons, both sides, trying to keep the two opposing sides balanced (the yugoloths don't appreciate this since they see that as their role, and the Blood War as 'their' experiment into the nature of Evil).

The upper planes are just as divided over the law/chaos axis as the fiends are, but they won't go to genocidal war over it. They obviously have differing opinions on which side they'd prefer to win the Blood War if it ever came down to having one side or the other win. The Eladrin can't conceive of a Baatezu victory, and likewise the Archons can't fathom the Abyss winning, and the Guardinals want to see all three sides obliterated, especially the yugoloths.

Guardinals in small groups will descend into the lower planes and slaughter fiends to their hearts content, usually taking heavy losses but not caring. Similar thing with Asuras, but for them it's less organized.

There's also information in 'Hellbound' regarding how the Slaadi, Modrons, Rilmani, Gehreleths/Demodands view the conflict and how they're involved. As well it has information on how deities view it all, how the various planar factions view it all etc.

It's a beautiful book, comprehensive in how it mentions the Blood War affecting every plane, race, etc either directly or indirectly.

 

[Erik Mona]

I have Hellbound and read it the first time around (I was a consultant on "Faces of Evil" back in the day), but it looks like I'll have to spend some time with it this weekend.

Two questions, for the D&D nerds:

1. Is there anything specifically stating that the Law/Chaos war in which the Wind Dukes of Aaqa fought the forces of the Queen of Chaos _is_ the Blood War? My problem with this is that the defeat of Miska the Wolf-Spider is supposed to put an end to this conflict, and the Blood War is certain not "over."

2. Is there a way that the war between Law and Chaos in which the Wind Dukes vanquished Miska happened _before_ the Blood War?

That's it for now.

--Erik Mona
http://www.superunicorn.com/erik