Fiends in Your Games

[Campbell]

Let's cut loose and talk about these embodiments of evil. How do you use demons, devils, and yugoloths in your games?

In my homebrew, fiends, referred to as the Adversaries, have not been present in some time. Fiends stand uniquely outside the bounds of Creation and are physical manifestations of negative energy that seek to end the existence of divine forces. They are not split into their usual three-fold dichotomy, but rather suffer from power struggles heavily reminiscent of Roman political intrigues. Fiends honestly believe that their approach towards divine beings would benefit humanity.

 

[The_Universe]

IMC, the varying fiend types also lack the seperation of demons, devils, and yugoloths. I tend to refer to them all as Demons, and they're really just a sideline to the main campaign villains, who are undead and/or draconic in nature.

In general, they're just the minions of powerful evil beings, dark gods, etc.

 

[Desdichado]

Fiends in my campaign are very similar to how the Chaos Daemons in Warhammer work , except that there are many more powers than just four. I also don't worry much about splits; a fiend is a fiend is a fiend regardless of whether he's a demon, a devil, a yuggoloth, an oni, or even some other type of monster on occasion.

I also downplay many of their spell-like abilities, as my campaign is Cthulhu-esque magic and I don't want to mess around with it.

 

[Psion]

Classic D&D with splits, all the way baby!

Well, with some exceptions.

First, demons were once proto-humans, slowly corrupted into the forms they hold today.

Fiends represent human weakness given form. The are more than just filled with hate, avarice, and greed. They ARE these things.

 

[Desdichado]

Fiends represent human weakness given form. The are more than just filled with hate, avarice, and greed. They ARE these things.

So I'm guessing you use a lot of the Book of Fiends daemons then?

Actually, I think I remember you posting somewhere that you do somewhere, although I might be mixing you up with someone else.

 

[Psion]

So I'm guessing you use a lot of the Book of Fiends daemons then?

Actually, I think I remember you posting somewhere that you do somewhere, although I might be mixing you up with someone else.

I planned to; none have come into play yet. I was going to slot them into Carceri in the default cosmology. Of course, they way my campaign is tending, the structure of the great wheel will sort of be irrelevant, but there will be plenty of opportunities to use daemons.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Like many others, there's not the hard and fast divisions. They're all the children of the gods of evil, Baal and Ammon. There's still the dai'Baal (devils) and dai'Ammon (demons), but they're not the hard alignment division they are in standard 3e, and there's not nearly as much animosity. The devils tend to see themselves as better than the demons -- sibling rivalry, not the Blood War. The main difference is that devils tend to be subtle, and demons blatant. There is overlap -- a gelugon, for instance, is a devil, but another gelugon could be a demon.

Most of the Book of Fiends daemons are considered devils.

 

[Campbell]

IMC, the varying fiend types also lack the seperation of demons, devils, and yugoloths. I tend to refer to them all as Demons, and they're really just a sideline to the main campaign villains, who are undead and/or draconic in nature.

In general, they're just the minions of powerful evil beings, dark gods, etc.

It's interesting that you mention a link between Undead creatures and Fiends. The relationship between Fiends and what are nominally Undead creatures in my world is basically the reverse of yours. A subset of undead, namely those with souls such as vampires and liches are not really Undead in my games. Instead such templated creatures obtain my own Damned subtype, and remain humanoids. This represents the pledges they willfilly give to the Adversaries in exchange for the powers of their new form, or so one small subsect of prophecy proclaims. I have been considering toning done the 'Everything that isn't human is exceptionally scary' theme of my setting, but now I'm going off on a tangeant.

 

[Desdichado]

I have been considering toning done the 'Everything that isn't human is exceptionally scary' theme of my setting, but now I'm going off on a tangeant.

Naw, where's the fun in that?

I want to talk to you about this a bit (since I'm doing something similar) -- but we can spare this thread a hijack and catch a few minutes during lunch tomorrow at the Detroit Gameday.

 

[Ryltar]

My campaign is a Planescape one: the fiends that make it into the storyline are almost exclusively of a scheming, manipulative sort (save for the cannon fodder, e.g. Dretches or the more straightforward, combat-oriented fiends). I'll not use one if I haven't found a reason as to why it is at its current location, what its plans are, and how it plans to double-cross its trusting allies. Of course, once players start to assume that all fiends are nothing but liars, let's throw one into the mix that actually keeps a bargain ...