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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grover Cleaveland" data-source="post: 2661153" data-attributes="member: 34932">Actually, that's the opposite of what any lord who cares about security should do. If the demon deliberately leaves an infinity of territory in his layer unbound to his will, he has no way of controlling what goes on there. A rival lord could easily set up his own fiefdom right next door! Far safer to control the entire layer, so that he only has to worry about threats coming from other tiers of the Abyss. Only the stupidest or weakest of lords would use your solution, which is no solution at all, as having a relatively tiny realm hardly prevents demons from moving outside of it.One thing Orcus can do to keep large numbers of troops in one place is to have large urban centers for them to visit - and this he has done, in the form of Lachrymosa and Naratyr. In these cities he provides them with constant sources of amusement and occupation. If he doesn't, there's little he can do to prevent them from moving into the wilds - other than slaughtering them, of course, but that's an option regardless.How so? When the 1e MMII specifically defines "prince" as one who rules at least one layer, and you say instead that the prince can only rule, at most, part of a layer, that looks like a change to me.Of course it does. If the Abyss is hostile enough, immortality is irrelevant. There are many factors we have to invent here - - How quickly do demons reproduce? (unknown)- How quickly do they die due to violence? (unknown)- How quickly do they die due to the hostile nature of their environment? (unknown)- How quickly do they die of old age? (known)You seem to assume that because one of these factors is known to be zero, this somehow proves that tanar'ri are capable of reproducing at a geometric rate. Pump up the numbers in the middle two factors and keep the number in the first low enough, and this isn't remotely true. No, that's not what I said. Not remotely. They're rather stronger than your average demon, aren't they? And there are innumerable princes who have been destroyed, either due to internecine warfare, invaders from other planes, or the terrible power of their own layers.Q1 never said that Lolth controls those worlds - in fact, she clearly does not. Those are only the worlds in which she is known and worshipped, and therefore her realm contains portals leading to them.It's not at all clear that demons are capable of reproducing their own kind outside the Abyss - the Abyss is the source of their power, after all, and without it they're nothing. They're beings of Chaos. There's only so much "lording" that can be done without cutting them off from that which empowers and defines them. You squeeze thousands of demons into a relatively small area and Golding's The Lord of the Flies will look like the Teletubbies.Demon lords want to encourage Chaos, both among their own troops and across the planes. That's what they are. They can't and won't create order any more than a fire elemental will attempt to raise the sea levels, or any more than they would want to create Good - and if they do, it will weaken both their armies and themselves.A barbazu's vision of its alignment is limited by its low rank - it grows stronger as the devil is refined in the flames of the Lake of Fire. Balors are comparatively far more ancient, and far closer to the true nature of their plane. That's why balors are stronger than barbazus are - because their understanding of their plane is stronger. If the barbazu comprehended its plane more than a dozen balors, it wouldn't be a barbazu anymore - it would be a baatezu noble.</blockquote>

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