Fiendish and Celestial Creatures

[pawsplay]

Why are the Outer Planes populated with mystical versions of common animals, in addition to outsiders but not in addition to large populations of fiendish or celestial humanoids?

What does a fiendish creature on a barren level of the Abyss eat?

Why do they have a smite ability, but no detect ability, especially augmented animals which are probably not smart enough to guess at Int 3?

Have you ever noticed that many areas of the Abyss and Hell would be devoid of fiendish creatures, which have a fairly low fire resistance relative to the fire-dominant planar trait?

Isn't it odd that advanced, larger versions of creatures often receive a jumpt to DR 5/magic, making them virtually immune to their somewhat smaller kin?

 

[pawsplay]

Most boring thread ever?

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

In my campaign, there are no outer planes...yet. So, summoning spells bring about something from the caster's imagination. Since the first summoners in my world weren't particularly imaginative, they came up with fairly mundane creatures, with just a hint of otherworldly-ness.

As wizards began to catalogue and codify things, a set of "rules" on what existed "out there" came about, resulting in a set list of what was available through summoning. The imagination factor petered off, even though, technically, the summoned creature is still a fabrication of the caster's will. The caster is just working off of a flawed set of limitations without even realizing it.

That's my explanation for fiendish and celestial critters.

 

[freyar]

Maybe it's just that these are hard questions! But I'll take a crack at it...

Why are the Outer Planes populated with mystical versions of common animals, in addition to outsiders but not in addition to large populations of fiendish or celestial humanoids?

Maybe there are some augmented humanoids. Or perhaps the humanoids have advanced by appropriate class levels?

What does a fiendish creature on a barren level of the Abyss eat?

I'd think they don't live there, if it's barren.

Why do they have a smite ability, but no detect ability, especially augmented animals which are probably not smart enough to guess at Int 3?

They hope they get lucky?

Have you ever noticed that many areas of the Abyss and Hell would be devoid of fiendish creatures, which have a fairly low fire resistance relative to the fire-dominant planar trait?

Hmmm, there's an awful lot of room in the Abyss that's not so hot... Or maybe the fiendish creatures come from some other nasty plane.

Isn't it odd that advanced, larger versions of creatures often receive a jump to DR 5/magic, making them virtually immune to their somewhat smaller kin?

Is this really a problem? Isn't a lion virtually immune to a housecat?

Edit: I really think I'll have to *yoink* crazypixie's idea!

 

[pawsplay]

Is this really a problem? Isn't a lion virtually immune to a housecat?

But not to other lions, surely. And anyway, no, not really. The lion will win, but the housecat could damage it.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I favour the theory that fiendish creatures such as a fiendish dog aren't actually "demonic dogs", they're "doglike demons" of a generic stripe.

Celestial animals make sense as celestial versions of actual animals, because all of the upper planes are similar to a perfected version of the Material Plane to some extent.

 

[Tonguez]

Why are the Outer Planes populated with mystical versions of common animals, in addition to outsiders but not in addition to large populations of fiendish or celestial humanoids?

Who said that celestial/feindish animals inhabit the outer planes? Maybe they all inhabit the Prime. Perhaps the celestial dog is in fact the 'collective essence of dog' given physical form.
Perhaps the Outer Planes have their own species which just happen to look like the ones we are familiar with and who said their aren't fiendish gnomes living in the Abyss?

What does a fiendish creature on a barren level of the Abyss eat?

The essence of Barreness

Why do they have a smite ability, but no detect ability, especially augmented animals which are probably not smart enough to guess at Int 3?

Int 3 is sufficient for a viable humanoid so a celestial beastie is at least smarter than your average bear and perhaps the smite works like the toxins in a Komodo Dragons mouth - I don't suppose it knows that its lack of oral hygiene gives it a damage bonus either

Have you ever noticed that many areas of the Abyss and Hell would be devoid of fiendish creatures, which have a fairly low fire resistance relative to the fire-dominant planar trait?

Have you ever noticed that not all areas of the earth are inhabited

Isn't it odd that advanced, larger versions of creatures often receive a jumpt to DR 5/magic, making them virtually immune to their somewhat smaller kin?

No its not odd

 

[Nyeshet]

Maybe there are some augmented humanoids. Or perhaps the humanoids have advanced by appropriate class levels?

You know, I never actually thought about this before: the idea that the abyss or hell could have villages and towns of "normal" fiendish humans, that arborea might have villages of celestial elves, that hell might have clans of fiendish dwarves, that celestia might have towns of celestial gnomes, and so forth.

I've tended to place the races on the prime planes, using fiendish or celestial versions only for rare individuals that for whatever reason either come from or have been imbued with the nature of the fiendish or celestial planes, respectively.

The idea that entire communities, kingdoms, etc could exist on these planes (many of which are infinite - and so could surely hold an entire world's worth or more of kingdoms, principalities, empires, counties, frontiers, and so forth) is startling new and fresh to me.

What would a kingdom of humans, existing solely in arcadia, for example, think of the prime would? If they had as much planar knowledge as typical humans on the prime (that is to say, none), they might view it as something akin to a lesser fiendish realm, as evil is so much stronger and more common there than in their home 'normal' realm. Could vast kingdoms, etc exist on an outer plane and not realize it was not the prime (due to ignorance, if nothing else)? I would think so, and I can imagine that the prime would be as odd to them as the outer plane from which they hale would seem odd to one from the prime.

It is an interesting idea. Thanks for inspiring it. I'm going to have to think on this one some more . . . .

 

[freyar]

Nyeshet, I actually didn't think much about humanoids living off the prime material plane until I read an article in one of the issues of the Candlekeep Compendium. It's a report by a gnome travelling the Abyss, and one of his earliest stops is a mostly humanoid town. Seemed like a bad place to live, IIRC, since you couldn't go outside without getting burned by the acid rain. I think the named NPCs all had a few levels, but I'm not sure if general population was supposed to be Commoner 1 or something. It would have made some sense to make them fiendish, I think.

 

[pawsplay]

I favour the theory that fiendish creatures such as a fiendish dog aren't actually "demonic dogs", they're "doglike demons" of a generic stripe.

Celestial animals make sense as celestial versions of actual animals, because all of the upper planes are similar to a perfected version of the Material Plane to some extent.

I like that notion, but there are a few problems with it.

1) the template doesn't change the type to outsider, which it probably should anyway, but the fact that it doesn't makes it more clear that these are not "demons"
2) Although the creatures are created by templating, the fact that they are common and similar enough to appear as summoned monsters on a regular basis kind of means that a "demon dog" should have some kind of name other than "fiendish wolf" if it wasn't simply a fiendish wolf

Now, the Fiendish Codex has some things to say on the subject (just a little).... it mentions that creatures of the Abyss somewhat resemble prime creatures because of their souls migrating there, and further, we know that Demogorgon's realm is full of them (where they make a certain amount of sense, aside from the fact you are talking about millions of Int 3 animals with a smite ability that doesn't work on anything native to their environment). The Hell book doesn't really have anyhting to say on the subject.

I'm just trying to picture something like an ecology for these creatures in a realm where armies of demons and angels are marching around and engaging in battle.

Further, isn't it odd you can find so many strange creatures on prime, but you can go to the twisted depths of the Abyss and find a.... hawk?