D&D 5E High Magic Economy Idea

[Chaosmancer]

Huh... expanding this out even further.

Mortal souls can become devils, by making a contract and being transformed in the process. One of the names of Mammon I've been using is "the Glittering Serpent"... And is there any reason a Dragon's soul can't become a devil? What if instead of being a human or something, Mammon was once a dragon. A dragon who made a deal with Asmodeus, and became an Archdevil.

 

[TheSword]

Huh... expanding this out even further.

Mortal souls can become devils, by making a contract and being transformed in the process. One of the names of Mammon I've been using is "the Glittering Serpent"... And is there any reason a Dragon's soul can't become a devil? What if instead of being a human or something, Mammon was once a dragon. A dragon who made a deal with Asmodeus, and became an Archdevil.

There is strong suggestion that Asmodeus is serpentine too. See the legend of Jazirian. If you play in a world where Tiamat is lord of the 1st layer - they could all be transformed dragons. Or maybe Tiamat is the lord of hell and Bahamut the lord of heaven.

 

[Stormonu]

Money being imbued with literal faith is a cool idea. Greed is a motivator, but greed is a strange motivator too.

Money is inherently worthless. No one (generally) wants money simply for the sake of money. Money if a medium of exchange, you want money because it allows you to get something else, which is why I find things like using money to hire Yugoloths to be so weird. Because they don't have anything to spend it on. Money isn't valuable (generally) in the outer planes.

I get that there can be a mythical element to wanting money for the sake of money, an obsession that is warping, but I've always found it a bit myopic in way. And it has always struck me that such beings come across as not understanding money, which is weird for beings that are supposed to embody the ideas of money to a degree.

Creatures like Yugoloths and Devils* want money in payment because of what sort of acts it requires the one doing the paying to do. How does one come up with 10,000 gp when the average day’s wages is 1 gp? Probably not by honest work…. When a fiend counts money, it isn’t counting coins - it’s counting sins.

Then, they can turn around and give it other mortals and encourage them to squander it on something petty or immoral. All to increase the chances they can get their grubby hands on the mortal’s soul somewhere down the line.

Dragons? They just sit of the stuff and get bigger. That money isn’t going anywhere to corrupt mortals and that just ticks the Yugoloths and Devils off to no end**.

*Demons want money because it means >you< don’t have it anymore. Har har har!
**And it makes the demons mad too, because they don’t have the pleasure of watching the tears of those who they take it away from.

 

[Ancalagon]

. what's the point of getting more?

Ask Jeff Bezos that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is strong suggestion that Asmodeus is serpentine too. See the legend of Jazirian. If you play in a world where Tiamat is lord of the 1st layer - they could all be transformed dragons. Or maybe Tiamat is the lord of hell and Bahamut the lord of heaven.

Nah, I took Tiamat out of Hell. Made Zariel an uber-Angel and the First of the Fallen, who Asmodeus turned towards his cause. Changed a lot about how Avernus works and made Zariel super scary. Like "send your army first" scary.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Creatures like Yugoloths and Devils* want money in payment because of what sort of acts it requires the one doing the paying to do. How does one come up with 10,000 gp when the average day’s wages is 1 gp? Probably not by honest work…. When a fiend counts money, it isn’t counting coins - it’s counting sins.

Then, they can turn around and give it other mortals and encourage them to squander it on something petty or immoral. All to increase the chances they can get their grubby hands on the mortal’s soul somewhere down the line.

Dragons? They just sit of the stuff and get bigger. That money isn’t going anywhere to corrupt mortals and that just ticks the Yugoloths and Devils off to no end**.

*Demons want money because it means >you< don’t have it anymore. Har har har!
**And it makes the demons mad too, because they don’t have the pleasure of watching the tears of those who they take it away from.

I guess I could see it in more the "what does the act of getting the money mean" for the fiends, but still seems really convoluted for the Yugoloths to get hired by devils with gold. Sure, the devils did something to cause suffering to get that gold, but... they were doing that anyways. They are devils.

Still, that is a nice take in making it a subtle type of evil

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ask Jeff Bezos that.

I would. After a certain point, anything you want is already in your reach, so more money is just pointlessly gilding the golden lily.