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Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss

Given that the Abyss is an infinite number of (often) infinite spaces, I would be shocked if they made Armies of the Abyss obsolete. I think there's more of a danger of that with the probable books about Hell and Hades.
 

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I'm drooling over the prospect of a Gehenna/Hades/Carceri book on Yugoloths.

*chuckles* Says the person with probably over 1000+ pages of material in stories and 2 storyhours involving the NE fiends.
 

James Jacobs said:
One thing to keep in mind (Erik touched on this in one of his posts above) is that during 2nd edition (and by extension, Planescape), TSR abandoned the word "Demon" (and "devil," etc.). Now certainly, a lot of great material about the lords of the Abyss came out of Planescape, but a lot of the history and real-world weight of the concept of "demons" was lost when the designers had to abandon real-world occult tradition as a source of inspiration. Some great stuff came out of this era, but it was hampered by the anti-demon stance TSR management had at the time.

Perhaps, though the real world demonology didn't supply much more than names for many of the early 1e archfiends. Demogorgon with his two babboon heads and tentacles really has little to do with Demo Gorgos as held in Gnostic belief, or the corruption of the term later to become a demon. It didn't seen to truly filter down into the material, and the flavor material of the time wasn't as expansive as the later 2e material (though as you said the 2e material had to divorce itself from 'real world' demons and devils to some extent).

While the original, pre-PS idea to drop demon and devil as terms wasn't anything great at all, they really did some awesome work to expand and create new material beyond a reliance on the tenuous real world references. Honestly, we're probably better off for the 1e material from before combined with the subsequent material that divorced itself from what might have been too tempting a crutch to rely on rather than going wholly original. Pros and Cons of both, but we've got both the 1e stuff and the Planescape material and what it added to the 1e stuff directly.

One of the primary goals for this book is to provide the definitive sourcebook for D&D's demons (and by extension, the Abyss itself). We'll be able to treat the demons and concepts introduced in Planescape without having to skirt issues or make up new names for old concepts. You can expect coverage of pretty much everything that has been mentioned about demons and the Abyss since the grand good old days. Including demon princes.

...

As for respecting the designers who've come before us... well, let me just say that if anything in this book comes off as disrespectful of their work, I'll certainly consider the book itself a failure. Respecting the work of earlier designers is what this job should be about.

Makes me feel much better. Thank you. Plus the Fraz-Urblu article in Dragon, using material right from 'Faces of Evil' was nifty too.
shemmysmile.gif
 

Erik Mona said:
That's really all I was trying to say. One Planescape lord I really like is Lynkhab, by the way. I find her very interesting and appreciate the "high-concept" element of her origin.

Same here :)

After Greyhawk, Planescape is my second favorite campaign setting. Please don't take my one comment about not appreciating certain elements of how they handled fiends as a condemnation of the whole setting or any of the people who worked on it.

--Erik

I won't, don't worry. Subsequent comments have eased whatever worries I had previously. I look forward to finding out more about the book's contents, and the questions I asked about it waaaaay back at the thread start. Would be great to see stuff on the Varrangoin and Bebeliths in there.
 

Shemeska said:
Perhaps, though the real world demonology didn't supply much more than names for many of the early 1e archfiends.

Fair enough. Often, though, simply using names from established mythology is enough to make a difference. There's a lot of power in a name.

Shemeska said:
Makes me feel much better. Thank you. Plus the Fraz-Urblu article in Dragon, using material right from 'Faces of Evil' was nifty too.

Cool, thanks!

I've been working very closely with Erik on those Dragon articles, and I think the tone and feel they have should be a fairly good indicator of where we're going with this book.
 




Gah, if I had known my mentioning Erik's opinion on Pale Night would lead to such a controversy...well, I probably would have done it anyway. ;)

One thing I want to mention is that people keep talking about how 2E didn't include the words "demon" or "devil" at the time...what they fail to mention is that Planescape saw the return of those terms. A reading of Tales from the Infinite Staircase or Faces of Evil: the Fiends shows that the setting wasn't afraid to toss those terms around. Give credit where credit is due, people.

Erik, I don't know about other people, but for me, the issue wasn't that you had an opinion...it was the idea that because of your opinion, some aspects of what some of us want to see are being supressed. That is, if I were to send in a Demonomicon article on Pale Night, and someone else sent one in on Kostchtchie, that you'd take the latter over the former ten times out of ten, due to personal preference alone. That's the sort of sentiment I was grumbling over...which doesn't mean it's necessarily true.

That and I honestly do think Pale Night is a cool concept (from what we've seen of her).

Also, in regards to Lynkhab...I'd like to point out that we now have three female Demon Lords of sex (Shami-Amourae, from Dungeon #5, "The Stolen Power"; Lynkhab, from Faces of Evil: the Fiends; and Malcanthet, mentioned in Dungeon #112 "Maure Castle" and #124 "Chambers of Antiquities"). It's high time we got them together and had them throw down (preferably in jello). :D
 
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James Jacobs said:
We'll both certainly be keeping an eye on these boards for anything remotely connected to demon-talk though (as we have been for the past several months, in fact).
i'll be keeping that in mind... in fact, i've been kind of counting on that. ;)

tossing some links at you... some i've started, some i didn't. :) (some are more on-topic than others)

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=148261
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=142163
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=87136
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=149940http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=148207
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=92275http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=144660

some Abyssal denizens i have known and loved (and converted):
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=736
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=750
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=506
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/outsider/thunderbeast.htm
(that's all i have ready at the moment.) ;)
 
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