Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss

[BOZ]

yeah, Guide to Hell did some wacky stuff (making Jazirian the coutal god an Overpower???) that i really really don't agree with.

and it was totally not a Planescape product. at all.

 

[Ripzerai]

I presume this is the other form of the Planescape Asmodeus at work. The one thats vastly more powerful than the other Archdevils and reputedly some form of Overgod.

No, this is A Paladin in Hell, after Planescape folded and about a year before Guide to Hell.

Asmodeus isn't an Overgod in any edition or manifestation. The closest thing was Guide to Hell, which called him a Greater God. A Paladin in Hell preceded that. In Planescape, his power level was undefined, but he was not necessarily more powerful than the other Lords of the Nine (except insofar as he ruled them).

the general power attributed to them is integral to the cosmology, not whether Demogorgon has 575 hit points or 576.

I don't believe that was under debate.

I'd like to think I am following the spirit of the rules.

But you really know you aren't, right? Since the rules don't remotely suggest any power drop of the level you're suggesting, I mean.

So does that mean you agree with me?

It means I disagree with you. If Demogorgon and his minions do evil things, Demogorgon gets the blame.

Like ruling an entire plane as opposed to a few layers.

Asmodeus rules an entire plane and the baatezu race. The General of Gehenna indirectly rules the yugoloth race. The General is Osama bin Laden to the Oinoloth's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. How much the General of Gehenna (as opposed to the Keeper of the Tower Arcane) controls the plane of Gehenna itself is disputable.

If Demogorgon gets more powerful the less layers he rules

That's not a good assumption. He gets more powerful the more chaotic and fractious the Abyss is, but only so long as he is the most powerful of its rulers. If he gave away his layers - or fell behind Orcus or Graz'zt in power - he'd just be another demon, not the Prince of Demons.

But did you like them or not?

I prefer the Astral Spell method.

Who only needs to teleport away.

So he sets up wards around Demogorgon to prevent anyone from teleporting, or gets a bunch of his clerics to do so.

Such orcs may well worship different gods, a whole different Orc Pantheon even.

They don't, though, in any of the three examples I listed.

Does everyone use Oerth, Toril and Borka though?

What difference does that make? Everyone doesn't use anything. They're three canonical examples, though.

 

[GVDammerung]

Hey there! . . . I presume this is the other form of the Planescape Asmodeus at work. . . . Why do you say obviously?

That wasn't Planescape actually. Planescape left him about as mysterious and undefined as possible, it was the post Planescape 2E 'Guide to Hell' that went off in its own direction with Asmodeus, and which defined him as equivalent in power to a greater deity.

Actually, the examples are from the adventure "A Paladin in Hell" by Monte Cook. Asmodeus has his "world on a string" and Demogorgon's "Demonwing" is used to help retrieve it.

I know of no other concrete examples of any deity or fiend capturing an entire world in a jar, nor of any entity building a boat or the like out of an entire planar layer. Maybe I do need to get out more but you'd think word of something like that would get around.

I put Orcus in the same category as Asmodeus and Demogorgon for two reasons - (1) The whole "Dead Gods" episode and (2) he is the most "widespread" in the various D&D canons of any D&D demon prince, bar none.

 

[GVDammerung]

Asmodeus rules an entire plane and the baatezu race.

This is not strictly true.

Asmodeus has no control over the form of the Hells (or any layer thereof ) in the manner of demon princes who can shape or control their layers. The form of the Hells is beyond Asmodeus. He did not create it. He inherited it.

Asmodeus does not control the baatezu in any ultimate sense. He did not create them. His power over any individual is not omnipotent. He cannot even predict or control his arch-devils. There is no instance where Asmodeus has by will or his personal power alone commanded the Hells. He is always seen politically manuvering. He needs his lessers and he needs to pit them against each other to maintain his position.

In terms of pure, absolute rulership, a demon prince rules his layer or layers in a way Asmodeus cannot begin to approach.

This is not to say Asmodeues is not the most powerful individual devil, all things considered
(although if memory serves various sources point out that Asmodeus is not physically the most powerful devil). He does get to wear the crown, even if he is not an absolute monarch, and that counts for something. Just not everything.

Neither is this to say that Asmodeus could not stand toe-to-toe with a demon prince.

Asmodeus is not in a class by himself but it is still a small class in which I would only allow Demogorgon and Orcus.

Grazzt I do not see as in that category. Three layers, yes. That is, however, more of the same. In my view, Asmodeus, Demogorgon and Orcus have transcended the usual shtick associated with their kind. They are more of something very different and of a greater order of magnitude - world chaining, planeshaping and profigate proliferation.

 

[Ripzerai]

This is not strictly true.

Asmodeus has no control over the form of the Hells (or any layer thereof ) in the manner of demon princes who can shape or control their layers. The form of the Hells is beyond Asmodeus. He did not create it. He inherited it.

Asmodeus does not control the baatezu in any ultimate sense. He did not create them. His power over any individual is not omnipotent. He cannot even predict or control his arch-devils. There is no instance where Asmodeus has by will or his personal power alone commanded the Hells. He is always seen politically manuvering. He needs his lessers and he needs to pit them against each other to maintain his position.

Fair enough, but that's not exactly what I meant by "rules." Certainly, the whole of Baator isn't his realm in the sense that Nessus is his realm, but he's the guy in charge of the plane. He can summon all the other Nine to appear before him once a year, for example - that's an example of him commanding through his personal power alone. He devoured Beherit whole, banished Armaros, Gargauth, Nergal, Moloch, and Geryon, and transformed Baalzebul.

He does control Nessus in exactly the same sense that Demogorgon controls Gaping Maw and Orcus controls Thanatos, although he does it in a more orderly fashion. The way I see it, Nessus obeys his commands because it is lawfully required to, while Gaping Maw obeys Demogorgon's commands because he forces it to, continually testing his will against it.

Many politicians have to pit their lessers against one another to maintain their position, so that's no criterion. The method he uses to rule doesn't change the fact that he does, indeed, rule.

He's not omnipotent or omniscient, but few rulers are.

Whether or not Asmodeus created the baatezu is debatable. He may have, depending on whether or not you think the Dragon #28 article and the Tome of Horrors is a better source than Guide to Hell or the Green Ronin stuff. He probably didn't create the Hells, but if you believe Guide to Hell or simply interpret him as an Ancient Baatorian, he may have done that as well.

I don't see how anyone can take the Dragon #28 article seriously, given that it claims that only the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th layers of Hell have single rulers and explicitly ends in 20th century Earth with Belial exiled and Astaroth/Gargauth as Ambassador to the United States of America. It's just not consonant with the D&D continuity at all. You can pull out parts of it and use them (as I have), but it can't really be cited as evidence of anything. Tome of Horrors can be countered with another d20 product, The Book of the Righteous by Green Ronin, where Asmodeus helped in the creation of the Hells (with the other gods) and orchestrated the creation of the divs who he later transformed into the devils.

 

[Shemeska]

Actually, the examples are from the adventure "A Paladin in Hell" by Monte Cook. Asmodeus has his "world on a string" and Demogorgon's "Demonwing" is used to help retrieve it.

*nod* I wouldn't particularly put the Paladin in Hell material as altogether beyond the scope of Asmo as presented previously. In fact I thought it was rather cool, and fitting for the Lord of the 9th there in that adventure. I was just maintaining that GtH went off from anything previous, including APiH, with its Asmo is teh RoXXor approach with the Zoarastrianism angle it pulled.

I know of no other concrete examples of any deity or fiend capturing an entire world in a jar, nor of any entity building a boat or the like out of an entire planar layer. Maybe I do need to get out more but you'd think word of something like that would get around.

Yeah, those two examples are at the top of firm examples. The only other things in the same scope that I can think of are (potentially) the Loadstones of Misery on the Gray Waste that are presumed to be the creations of one or more of the Baernaloths, and funnel away and collect the emotion, purpose, and everything else devoured and leeched away by the Gray Waste itself. Draining away and collecting the entirety of what is devoured by three infinite layers of a plane is probably fit to be included with Asmo's world in a bauble and Demogorgon's planar layer as a ship.

I put Orcus in the same category as Asmodeus and Demogorgon for two reasons - (1) The whole "Dead Gods" episode and (2) he is the most "widespread" in the various D&D canons of any D&D demon prince, bar none.

Understandable, but I'd shy away from it on another level because Orcus is petitioner derived as opposed to being a true child of the Abyss. Of course we don't know if Demogorgon came from a petitioner or spawned directly from the Abyss itself (we know Grazzt is not petitioner derived since he was born from the Abyssal Lord Pale Night).

Of course, giving an inherent power advantage to native born versus petitioner derived Tanar'ri might just be an arbitrary designation on my part, and I'm sure some will disagree with that notion. (For which I'd be curious to listen to actually)

 

[Ripzerai]

Orcus probably isn't as ancient as Demogorgon, but I don't think evolving from a mortal soul necessarily puts him at a disadvantage in itself. If anything mortal remained in him after millennia of becoming closer and closer to the true nature of chaotic evil and bonding with at least one (and probably up to five) layers of the Abyss, it died when he did - I don't think Tenebrous was anything but a spirit of malign chaos (at least, until his trip to Mechanus).

Incidently, the layers I have listed, canonical and non-canonical, as being once controlled directly or indirectly by Orcus are:

LAYER 112: STALKINGBONES (FONT OF SKELETONS)
LAYER 113: THANATOS (THE BELLY OF DEATH)
LAYER 114: OPEN GRAVE
LAYER 334: UNNAMED (Eldanoth's realm; formally Orcus'?)
LAYER 421: SALTED WOUND (Realm of the King of the Ghouls; taken by Yeenoghu)

Admitting, of course, that indirectly controlling an Abyssal layer isn't the same as directly controlling it.

 

[Shemeska]

Whether or not Asmodeus created the baatezu is debatable. He may have, depending on whether or not you think the Dragon #28 article and the Tome of Horrors is a better source than Guide to Hell or the Green Ronin stuff. He probably didn't create the Hells, but if you believe Guide to Hell or simply interpret him as an Ancient Baatorian, he may have done that as well.

Or the material from 'Hellbound: The Blood War' and 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends' which gives more likelyhood that Asmodeus, whatever his own origin, did not create the Baatezu. The material in GtH is totally at ends with those other two sources, as well as a few others, so I personally am less likely to accept it at face value (since it really just goes off in its own direction compared to all the previous material on Asmo). However, the material in Hellbound and FoE leaves open the possibility of Asmodeus being an Ancient Baatorian who preceeded the arrival of the Baatezu, the first and most powerful of the larvae that became the original Baatezu following their forced migration, or a physical manifestation of the plane of Baator itself which adapted to rule over its new natives after they conquered and displaced the original Ancient Baatorians.

I personally like it left an open question, though I've partially given my own shine to it all in another story I'm slowly working on, but even in there it's somewhat of an open question that suggests either the 1st or 3rd of the possibilities above.

 

[Ripzerai]

Or the material from 'Hellbound: The Blood War' and 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends' which gives more likelyhood that Asmodeus, whatever his own origin, did not create the Baatezu.

Yeah, the suggestions there as to Asmodeus' identity are, if I remember correctly:

- Ancient Baatorian
- Law-tainted yugoloth, refugee of the General of Gehenna's purge
- Baernaloth
- Baatezu
- Manifestation of Nessus itself (at least partly true in any event)

And I'd add Guide to Hell's suggestion that he's a primal being of Law tainted by evil as a counterpart to the yugoloth hypothesis, without necessarily accepting any of GtH's other assertions.

 

[Shemeska]

Yeah, the suggestions there as to Asmodeus' identity are, if I remember correctly:

- Ancient Baatorian
- Law-tainted yugoloth, refugee of the General of Gehenna's purge
- Baernaloth
- Baatezu
- Manifestation of Nessus itself (at least partly true in any event)

And I'd add Guide to Hell's suggestion that he's a primal being of Law tainted by evil as a counterpart to the yugoloth hypothesis, without necessarily accepting any of GtH's other assertions.

*nodding* Correct on all counts. I like to leave it an open question, though I personally, and it might be strange to hear this from me perhaps, don't like the idea of him as a Baernaloth (your own damn interesting writing on that tangent notwithstanding).

Tainted indirectly by the Baern, perhaps, given that all of the Baatezu, and the lower planes in general, are blotted by their influence at a basic level. The idea of him being descended from one of the pre-Heart of Darkness yugoloths is interesting, but I went a completely different way with that in my own stuff (sufice to say Chorazin the Thrice Damned has a long shadow).

I prefer him as an Ancient Baatorian, one of those first Baatezu, or the manifestation of Nessus itself; a bit more native than not, though sullied by the influence of the NE progenitors. It's possible to include the GtH material, at least some of it, with Asmo as a being of Law who was corrupted by Evil, but beyond that the GtH stuff starts to get pretty wonky with and dismissive of prior lore. But of course, 3e has reverted the most offensive of that to only rumor rather than fact, and we're back to mystery.