Hordes of the Abyss.
- Thread starter JoeGKushner
- Start date
BOZ said:
Ah, alas, you missed my explanation on post #207 on one major reason why upgrading is harder than downgrading. Downgrading is a simple process of lowering the HD and SR, whereas raising the HD to upgrade is not enough. #207 explains it pretty thoroughly, but I'll hint that it has to do with the demon lords special attacks and qualities compared to the power of ELH monsters.
Garnfellow
Explorer
Razz said:
I read your earlier post, I'm just not sure I find it entirely persuasive. Yeah, adding special abilities and then assigning a CR is a pain, though books like the Monster's Handbook make the process a lot easier. But regressing a monster involves a lot more than just subtracting HD and SR -- there's skills, feats, ability increases, etc to consider. Just the thought of having to recalculate skill points for a high level outsider makes me grind my teeth. (Do epic synergy bonus kick in at 20, 23 or 24 ranks? blagh.) Adding monster features is almost always easier in 3e than subtracting. But this is all YMMV.
But you are right that there's a glaring hole in the existing rules, one that the third party publishers could fill nicely. I've often thought it would be very cool to have a book that gave rules for advancing a fiend from lowly ranks all the way to the upper echelons. Something like Sean Reynold's Anger of Angels, a toolkit with lots of feats and prestige classes designed to customize fiends with unique abilities.
Here are a few ideas I've had for prestige classes for such a book:
- A class that lets a demon metamorphose into the next most powerful demonic race. A vrock can use this to become a hezru, or a marillith could become a balor.
- A 5-10 level prestige class that lets a normal fiend become a unique creature with a true name, a unique form, and maybe a suite of customized spell-like abilties.
- An epic prestige classe that lets a unique fiend become a fiendish lord, collecting more specialized abilties. Maybe at the end of this class they are able to forge soul items.
- Finally, an epic class for fiendish princes, creatures who control a large planar territory like an abyssal layer. Levels in this class grant increasing control over the nature of the environment.
Garnfellow
Explorer
Sammael said:
Awesome! I hadn't heard of that product.
Sammael
Adventurer
Well, technically, I don't know if I'd call it a "product." It's a series of free PDFs produced by the Dicefreaks council. But they are better written then a lot of "commercial" PDFs. and I think they're going to compete in the ENnies this year.Garnfellow said:
Gates of Hell board (links to finished PDFs are stickied in a thread).
Horrors of the Abyss stuff so far, including the Demon Lord, Demon Prince, and Demiurge templates.
Well, I believe that most Dicefreaks will be buying this book even though as a community we're disappointed with the direction WotC has taken.
What's ironic for us is that we never intended on waiting this long to release our treatise on The Abyss, Horrors of The Abyss. It's been in the works for about four years ever since the three original templates were drafted shortly after the original diabolical templates were drafted. So, we expect that folks are going to draw inaccurate parallels between our HoTA and WotC's HotA.
That said, and as others have pointed out, folks have the ability to create their own version of these creatures and DF has taken pains to create planar archetypes as equivalent to, but different from, gods. So, take Sammael's link above and you'll see (very) preliminary material on some of the better known demon princes and lords including a sexual predator Graz'zt, an Orcus you'll love to hate, and a Demogorgon that will make Zeus, Odin, and other greater gods have nightmares. And, if you don't want your planar lords equal to gods, but at least within a reasonable power-level compared to the demons and devils as stated in 3.5 MM, Kain Darkwind -- one of our chief designers -- created his own version of the planar lords.
In the end, I'm sure that there will be material in WotC's latest work on the planes that can be salvaged and I don't think it's a total lost. I do hope (and I admit that I've not read Joe's review yet... Want to be a little surprised and hopeful after some of the disappointing news) that there is at least a new, accurate, and (gods help us) cool picture of Demogorgon, the true Prince of Demons (sorry, Nightfall, but Orcus is not Demogorgon
).
What's ironic for us is that we never intended on waiting this long to release our treatise on The Abyss, Horrors of The Abyss. It's been in the works for about four years ever since the three original templates were drafted shortly after the original diabolical templates were drafted. So, we expect that folks are going to draw inaccurate parallels between our HoTA and WotC's HotA.
That said, and as others have pointed out, folks have the ability to create their own version of these creatures and DF has taken pains to create planar archetypes as equivalent to, but different from, gods. So, take Sammael's link above and you'll see (very) preliminary material on some of the better known demon princes and lords including a sexual predator Graz'zt, an Orcus you'll love to hate, and a Demogorgon that will make Zeus, Odin, and other greater gods have nightmares. And, if you don't want your planar lords equal to gods, but at least within a reasonable power-level compared to the demons and devils as stated in 3.5 MM, Kain Darkwind -- one of our chief designers -- created his own version of the planar lords.
In the end, I'm sure that there will be material in WotC's latest work on the planes that can be salvaged and I don't think it's a total lost. I do hope (and I admit that I've not read Joe's review yet... Want to be a little surprised and hopeful after some of the disappointing news) that there is at least a new, accurate, and (gods help us) cool picture of Demogorgon, the true Prince of Demons (sorry, Nightfall, but Orcus is not Demogorgon
).
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Semi-Complete Review
Still has to go through some more editing of course.
Don't have the book with me right now and it'll probably be a day or two before I'm back online so hopefully the latter part of the review with all the planes detailed will provide some info.
Hordes of the Abyss
ISBN 13-978-0-7869-3919-0
Written by Ed Stark, James Jacobs, Erik Mona
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
160 full color pages
$29.95
Demons are a fan favorite for gamers and have a long history in role playing games. This includes unofficial expansions in previous editions such as Mayfair’s Role Aid’s demons line and in 3.5 with Green Ronin’s Armies of the Abyss and Legions of hell which were latter combined into one book. This doesn’t count Mongoose take on it with books on Demonology or OGL variants dealing with the lower planes nor Necromancer Games take on the demon lords in Tome of Horrors series.
Of course that doesn’t touch on the official expansions from TSR to Wizards of the Coast. The old Monster Manual from 1st edition and it’s sequel, along with the numerous supplements for Planescape and even in late 3.0 products like the Book of Vile Darkness to Dragon magazine’s support, including new demonology articles.
The book uses standard two-column format. Broken into five chapters with three appendices, the book makes good use of white space or has the illusion of it with dark red borders. Chapters are laid out towards the outside margin towards the top of the page and page numbers on the bottom outside margin. Page count is standard for Wizards of the Coast products and with the full color and hardback format, isn’t unreasonable, but other publishers like Steve Jackson games with their larger books at full color in hardback, are catching up.
Cover art is handled by Sam Wood. Interior artists include fan favorites like William O’Connon and Wyane Reynolds among others. Interior art is fairly solid but some reuse of art lowers that value. For example, while the full color picture of Graz’zt and Iggwilv by Wayne Renolds on page 101 is fantastic, it’s the same picture that was used for the cover of Dungeon magazine #121. The terrible illustration of Orcus as some balor style demon instead of his bloated self on page 73 comes from the Book of Vile Darkness on page 137.
Cartography is handled by Jason Engle and Kyle Hunter. They provide overviews of different locations, as well as mapped out lairs and encounter spots. The difference in their styles makes it fairly easy to tell for example, that Jason Engle did the Twelve Trees on page 134 while the overview of Thanatos is probably by Kyle Hunter.
The book starts off with Demonic Lore. Want to know how a demon dies? There’s a charming little table that you can roll a d20 on and see anything from the skin of the demon peeling away to rotting away to nothing more than a foul odor. It’s a nice little touch to showcase just how different demons are from standard creatures.
The section on the origins of demons is merely a suggestion that demons arose from the Abyss after the deities, devils, and other powers left that plane and went to others. Pretty boring stuff.
The section on physiology covers a few areas but only in brief detail. For example, demons don’t sleep and those that do breath have powerful lungs and can breath in any Material plane. They don’t need to eat, but can apparently eat limitless amounts of food and some take great enjoyment from it, especially the devouring of sacrifices.
In terms of why demons don’t overrun the Prime campaign, not a lot of thought is given. Perhaps because, when looking under Six Truths About Demons, that the Abyss calls to them. Which doesn’t explain why when fiendish portals open that they fight to keep them open and “take steps to avoid its subsequent closure.” Of course enjoying chaos for it’s own sake might explain a little of that.
This includes the different roles that a demon can play in a campaign. Roles include assassin, brute, corruptor, manipulator, and the overlord. Under each type include suggested demons, combat tactics, how to use these types of function in the campaign, how to fight against this type of demon and general notes.
For example, those fighting against an assassin have to have some protections and knowledge bases in place ahead of time as the assassin isn’t a straightforward encounter. Suggestions include having friends around ala the buddy system, to capturing the assassin. Basic information that well-experienced role players will have gone far beyond. No suggestion on proper spells to select when trying to determine if you’re under such a threat, and no guides on how much such a service in and of itself might cost.
Chapter tow moves onto demons. Revisited and revised or introduced for the first time we have the following; armanite, bar-lgura, broodswarm, bulezau, chasme, dybbuk, ekolid, goristro, guecubu, lilitu, mane, molydeus, nabassu, rutterkin, sibriex and yochlol. Also included are two new subtypes, loumara and obyrith with the tanar’ri still being the most common and reprinted here for ease of use. The loumara, in addition to a wide set of immunities (acid, electricity, and fire), not only have cold resistance, but are incorporeal and can possess creatures and objects. The obyrith don’t have immunity to quite so many things, but do have resistances and fast healing in addition to appearing so freakish that they cause madness.
Monsters are described by name, physical description, game statistics, strategy and tactics, sample encounter, ecology, society, and typical treasure along with a section on lore for each creature from DC 15 to DC 44. These additional tools allow the GM to get the most bang for his buck and quickly insert the monsters into his campaign as appropriate.
My favorite is probably the molydeus. It’s a creature I recall from the old Planescape books that was described as something even a balor would fear. With it’s dancing battle axe of vorpal and it’s numerous innate powers, while it’s not necessarily something a balor would fear, it’s CR 19 insures that all but epic levels characters will respect this demon enforcer’s authority. It was also nice to see manes and rutterkin again as those are perfect minors for lower level adventures.
One of the things I liked least about the book is it’s take on demon lords. The book has deliberately weakened the demon lords to make them possible to fight at the end of the normal progression of the campaign. This means that a standard group of four twentieth level characters should be able to take Dagon or Pazuzu or even older favorites like Orcus.
A strange thing since the other official source of these demon lords statistics, Dragon magazine, is going a different route and will continue to go that route of more powerful demon lords, nor that many people thought that the demon lords as they first appeared in the Book of Vile Darkness were underpowered to begin with.
I can understand the reasoning. There’s a difference between being awed by how powerful a creature is an actually using it, but in the end, for me, it just doesn’t make sense and it’s not a change I like, and it’s not a direction I like. Why have epic rules in the core book, Dungeon Master’s Guide, if they’re not going to be supported? It also goes against the fact that the standard demons and devils were upgraded in the transition to 3.5. So the lesser are upgraded and the princes are downgraded?
Another problem with this approach is that it makes the demon lords very similar in power levels all about. In the “good old days” (god I’m old!) there were noticeable differences between the demon lords and it showed in their game stats. Now there’s very little difference in the power spread.
I know, someone will point out the quarter page on improving the demon lords and go, “See, they are supporting your campaign”, but that’s weak at best. Thankfully, it is true that it’s easier to augment a creature than depower it so I’ll be taking that advice or simply using a third part resource like Tome of Horrors when I need a demon lord to actually you know, be more powerful than a balor.
For those still looking for a weaker version, there is going to be a web update on the Wizards website that provides aspects of the demon lords that should be useful for lower powered campaigns.
Demon lords covered are as follows; Baphomet (CR 20), Dagon (CR 22), Demogorgon (CR 23), Fraz-Urb’luu (CR 21), Graz’zt (CR 22), Jubilex (CR 19), Kostchtchie (CR 21), Malcanthet (CR 21), Obox-ob (CR 22), Orcus (CR 22), Pale Night (CR21), Pazuzu (CR 22), Yeenoghu (CR 20), and Zuggtmoy (CR 21).
Demons start off with name, then an italic description of the creature. Game stats are presented in the new style. Lore for each creature is included which ranges from knowledge checks DC 20 to DC 35. Strategy and tactics covers basic combat formulas and each section ends with servants, enemies, and goals. Each entry is rather short and those seeking further information should check for the Dragon magazine articles featuring each demon.
Afterwards, we move onto chapter four, Trafficking With Demons. It’s a section for players and game masters and points out appropriate PrCs as well as introducing new feats and spells. One of the first character roles mentioned is Demon Hunter. Those more interested in such information should hunt down Goodman Game’s Demon Hunter’s Handbook.
Other roles include demon master, demon summoner or demon worshipper. Because, you know if you didn’t put the word demon in front of it in a book about demons, people would become confused. Those former roles are generally better for an evil or ‘vile’ campaign.
While the book doesn’t include any new PrCs, it does not which ones are appropriate and what source they come from. It covers recent books like the Fiendbinder from Tome of Magic as well as older books like the Book of Vile Darkness for the Thrall. It’s a short section and well, a fairly obvious one. There’s no “Wow!” factor in reading that one role a player might take is a demon hunter, especially when it mentions a demon hunting PrC like the Knight of the Chalice as from it’s very background, it’s an obvious choice. It’s a good cross-promotion bit for those who may not have those books but for those who do, merely a reminder.
Some of the feats include abyssal heritor feats and vile feats. The former are not necessarily evil, but do reflect the chaotic nature of the Abyss and are a result of the mingling of the Abyss and Prime planes mingling. The latter on the other hand, are only available to character who are evil and intelligence and often come with their own costs and are granted by higher powers such as a demon lord.
Many of the heritor feats grow in power if you have more than heritor feat. For example, Claws of the Beast inflicts an extra +1 profane bonus to damage that inclurases by 1 for every two heritor feats you have. The vile feats range from knowing Dark Speech, which effects listeners depending on their alignment and level, to a ‘sacrifice’ feat, Evil Brand, that in and of itself is actually less useful than a normal feat, but is necessary to chain up to higher feats. Evil Brand provides a +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against evil creatures, a similar bonus to other +2 to two skill feats with a limit. But because of that you can gain Demonic Conduit that increases the DC’s of your spells against lawful and good targets. Useful but still limited. Good for those casters who want to showcase their ‘evil’ nature.
Spells are arranged by class and in alphabetical order. For sorcerers and wizards, they also include division by school. Domains are also included as follows; corruption, demonic, entropy, fury, ooze, and temptation.
Spells vary in utility and level from enhancing your senses such as the 7th level Fiendish Clarity that grants you darkvision and allows you to see in margical darkness and see invisible and detect good, to the 3rd level blackguard spell, demon wings where you can fly at your land speed.
For those who need a grounding or organization to get the most out of their play, or GMs looking for more evil, the organization The Black Cult of Ahm should fit the bill. While not a PrC, it does have an entry requirement. This organization studies demons. Members come from various ethos and alignments and depending on the branch, the Cult may wind up helping or hindering the characters.
Information includes how the cult fits into the campaign setting, different DC checks for players to seek out knowledge of them from DC 15 to DC 30, brief ideas on how to adapt them for a campaign, and two sample encounters so the GM can use them right away.
In addition to the cult itself, we have the Black Scrolls of Ahm. This is not one item, but rather the collected works of Tulket nor Ahm whose explorations of the Abyss were written down in the Black Scrolls. These scrolls provide a knowledge bonus to knowledge planes checks and have different rules for providing higher bonuses depending on how many different scrolls the character has. In addition, each scroll has a cumulative change of summoning a fiend associated with the scroll. Said fiend’s job is to steal and destroy the scroll as demons don’t want knowledge of their plane out in the open. To count that, the books can teleport away using either planeshift or teleport. Doing so resets the cumulative percentage chance.
The Black Scrolls provide a different way of handling an artifact and the different write ups from the Abyssal Mundus to the Rubric of Tulket no Ahm provide several different options for the GM to add to his campaign. If nothing else, they act as good bargaining chips when dealing with the Black Cult of Ahm.
Chapter five, Into the Abyss, provides details on the Abyss. One of the interesting things is that reading through it, it almost reads a little like the section on Shiggarreb, a qlippoth lord from Green Ronin’s Book of Fiends.
Shiggarreb and her followed used the primordial stuff of chaos to create and destroy… they continued their mad experiments until hosts of ghaeles brought the qlippoth civilization tumbling down. Compare this to “Faerie Queen Morwel…ordered her ghaele knight legions to launch a devastating raid upon the Plain of Inifnite Portals.”
Shiggarreb then becomes a good replacement for The Queen of Chaos and the qlippoths of Book of Fiends make good substitutes for the obyriths.
Denizens of the abyss covers the basics; tanar’ri, obyriths, loumaras, mortals petitioners and deities. Under mortals, brief mention is made of various Planescape fan favorite factions like the Dustmen and the Doomguard. The obyrith’s are the ancient Prerequisite:-tanar’ri race and the loumaras are the new breed. In some ways, as they are “the fitful last dreasm of a dying pantheon of evil gods”, they could even be related to something far off like the Dark Plea from Malhavoc or the Far Realm as those far off entities dream deep and disturbing dreams. The tie into madness when seeing the loumaras can help cement any such connection a GM makes.
The different areas of the Abyss each include details on how to move about them, as well as various encounter tables. For example, if upon the Abyssian Ocrean, you may encounter tiefling pirates or while traveling the River Styx, have to fight off a Chaos beast. A nod is given to the fan favorite Charon, “a godlike yugoloth” who doesn’t both his passengers but a few of the boatmen do indeed seek the lives and treasures of their passengers. For those who want big ships, the book includes mention of the Ships of Chaos, “titanic magical vessels”.
One of the nice things about the book is how many ‘winks’ it provides to fans of the older material such as including the Infinite Staircase and the River Styx. These little bits help tie the various editions together and provide good reason to break out the old Planescape material when looking for ways to get more details for game use.
Those looking for other ways to traverse the outer planes might want to check out the Book of Eldritch Might III and it’s Nexus, a location that ties into various other settings. It could quite easily be used as a center point to link the different layers of the Abyss together.
The Abyss is certainly not standard traveling and has it’s own unique hazards and terrain features. These include things like viper trees that can attack those who come to close or memory fog, which causes confusion in those who dwell in it overlong.
The majority of this section though, deals with layer descriptions. Layers start off with name, layer number, ruler, traits, background with planar traits detailed, denizens, locales, encounters, and adventure hooks. This often includes overland maps and a specific map of a location.
Included are the following planes with leader; Pazunia (Pazuzu), Azzagrat (Graz’zt), Demonweb (Lolth), Thanatos (Orcus), The Grand Abyss (none, contested), Twelvetrees (none), The Iron Wastes (Kostchtchie), The Wells of Darkness (unclaimed), The Gaping Maw (Demogorgon), Hollow’s Heart (Fraz-Urb’luu), Shedaklah (Juiblex and Zuggtmoy), Yeenoghu’s Realm (Yeenoghu), Androlynne (Pale Night), Shendilavri (Malcanthet), and The Endless Maze (Baphomet).
To take a closer look, the Demonweb is the 66th layer, ruled by Lolth with no gravity outside Lolth’s web and is infinite. Here, evil or chaotic spells work as if the caster was twice his normal level. Web spells are twice their normal area of effect. Spider climb lasts twice as long. Summoning spells summon vermin.
Touches like this make each layer a custom fit for it’s ruler and often pits some advantage in the ruler’s hands. In terms of denizens, Lolth has Eclavdra as her chief diplomat and mortal ruler of her organization as well as Gethshuq, a powerful bebilith who announces Lolth’s coming to the Materal Plane. Others like Laveth, one of Lolth’s children, seek to take the Demonweb for their own.
In terms of locales, the map shows the Demonweb overview. This includes different portals including connections to Istivin, the Ship of Lolth, the Labyrinith of Arachne and others.
One of the nice things about the planes detailed is that some of the lend themselves to adventuring easily. A high level party that owes a debt to the Court of Stars of fey creatures in general may be called upon to fight in Androlynne where trapped eladrins from the war that destroyed the obyrith struggle for survival. On the other hand, the players may have to seek out a prisoner in one of the Wells of Darkness. Perhaps a GM using Tome of Magic decides that some of the vestiges that a player calls upon are located here and they want out.
Appendix I: Lords of the Abyss, provides a breakdown of different demon lords with name, title, concerns, and layer. This includes those detailed here, as well as those mentioned in previous books, but not detailed. For example, Rhyxali is the Queen of Shadow Demons on layer 49, Shaddonon.
Appendix II, Layers of the Abyss, provides a breakdown on over fifty layers with layer number, common name and ruler. This includes if the plane is contested or has no ruler.
Appendix III is an index of demons with the demons listed in alphabetical order, includes their category (demon, tanar’ri, loumara, or obyrith), and source. They’ve done a good job of getting even minor entries like the abyssal drake from the Draconomicon, but don’t touch any of the various Dragon magazines. It also includes a breakdown of demons by CR, which revises the CR listing. Without a listing of appropriate game mechanic changes to the creatures proper though, some of the changes seem odd. The klurichir can summon balors but is now weaker than them. Some type of web supplement would be great here.
My biggest problem with the book is the strength ratings of the demon lords. Despite that, the demon lords are usable as is and will probably now see more use than they would have from the Book of Vile Darkness. In addition, those lazy and wanting more powerful game stats can still use the Book of Vile Darkness, the Tome of Horrors from Necromancer Games or the various articles that are still running in Dragon Magazine.
The writing is evocative and brings forth different ideas quickly. While a lot of material has its origins in different material and perhaps even different companies books (Book of Fiends I’m eyeing you), it all seems to fit together well. The biggest problem isn’t in the quality of the content, but in the amount of it. At 160 pages, it’s impossible to do the Abyss justice when covering the politics, entities, layers, and potential adventurers. This could easily have been the first book of the Abyss as opposed to the first Fiendish Codex. Some may cry that there are no prestige classes here but as the new format eats so much space, I’m thankful that no PrCs are included.
If you’re game demands official 3.5 updates to demon lords and their minions and you want new subtypes of demons and more adventure seeds than you can shake a stick at, Hordes of the Abyss is for you.
Still has to go through some more editing of course.
Don't have the book with me right now and it'll probably be a day or two before I'm back online so hopefully the latter part of the review with all the planes detailed will provide some info.
Hordes of the Abyss
ISBN 13-978-0-7869-3919-0
Written by Ed Stark, James Jacobs, Erik Mona
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
160 full color pages
$29.95
Demons are a fan favorite for gamers and have a long history in role playing games. This includes unofficial expansions in previous editions such as Mayfair’s Role Aid’s demons line and in 3.5 with Green Ronin’s Armies of the Abyss and Legions of hell which were latter combined into one book. This doesn’t count Mongoose take on it with books on Demonology or OGL variants dealing with the lower planes nor Necromancer Games take on the demon lords in Tome of Horrors series.
Of course that doesn’t touch on the official expansions from TSR to Wizards of the Coast. The old Monster Manual from 1st edition and it’s sequel, along with the numerous supplements for Planescape and even in late 3.0 products like the Book of Vile Darkness to Dragon magazine’s support, including new demonology articles.
The book uses standard two-column format. Broken into five chapters with three appendices, the book makes good use of white space or has the illusion of it with dark red borders. Chapters are laid out towards the outside margin towards the top of the page and page numbers on the bottom outside margin. Page count is standard for Wizards of the Coast products and with the full color and hardback format, isn’t unreasonable, but other publishers like Steve Jackson games with their larger books at full color in hardback, are catching up.
Cover art is handled by Sam Wood. Interior artists include fan favorites like William O’Connon and Wyane Reynolds among others. Interior art is fairly solid but some reuse of art lowers that value. For example, while the full color picture of Graz’zt and Iggwilv by Wayne Renolds on page 101 is fantastic, it’s the same picture that was used for the cover of Dungeon magazine #121. The terrible illustration of Orcus as some balor style demon instead of his bloated self on page 73 comes from the Book of Vile Darkness on page 137.
Cartography is handled by Jason Engle and Kyle Hunter. They provide overviews of different locations, as well as mapped out lairs and encounter spots. The difference in their styles makes it fairly easy to tell for example, that Jason Engle did the Twelve Trees on page 134 while the overview of Thanatos is probably by Kyle Hunter.
The book starts off with Demonic Lore. Want to know how a demon dies? There’s a charming little table that you can roll a d20 on and see anything from the skin of the demon peeling away to rotting away to nothing more than a foul odor. It’s a nice little touch to showcase just how different demons are from standard creatures.
The section on the origins of demons is merely a suggestion that demons arose from the Abyss after the deities, devils, and other powers left that plane and went to others. Pretty boring stuff.
The section on physiology covers a few areas but only in brief detail. For example, demons don’t sleep and those that do breath have powerful lungs and can breath in any Material plane. They don’t need to eat, but can apparently eat limitless amounts of food and some take great enjoyment from it, especially the devouring of sacrifices.
In terms of why demons don’t overrun the Prime campaign, not a lot of thought is given. Perhaps because, when looking under Six Truths About Demons, that the Abyss calls to them. Which doesn’t explain why when fiendish portals open that they fight to keep them open and “take steps to avoid its subsequent closure.” Of course enjoying chaos for it’s own sake might explain a little of that.
This includes the different roles that a demon can play in a campaign. Roles include assassin, brute, corruptor, manipulator, and the overlord. Under each type include suggested demons, combat tactics, how to use these types of function in the campaign, how to fight against this type of demon and general notes.
For example, those fighting against an assassin have to have some protections and knowledge bases in place ahead of time as the assassin isn’t a straightforward encounter. Suggestions include having friends around ala the buddy system, to capturing the assassin. Basic information that well-experienced role players will have gone far beyond. No suggestion on proper spells to select when trying to determine if you’re under such a threat, and no guides on how much such a service in and of itself might cost.
Chapter tow moves onto demons. Revisited and revised or introduced for the first time we have the following; armanite, bar-lgura, broodswarm, bulezau, chasme, dybbuk, ekolid, goristro, guecubu, lilitu, mane, molydeus, nabassu, rutterkin, sibriex and yochlol. Also included are two new subtypes, loumara and obyrith with the tanar’ri still being the most common and reprinted here for ease of use. The loumara, in addition to a wide set of immunities (acid, electricity, and fire), not only have cold resistance, but are incorporeal and can possess creatures and objects. The obyrith don’t have immunity to quite so many things, but do have resistances and fast healing in addition to appearing so freakish that they cause madness.
Monsters are described by name, physical description, game statistics, strategy and tactics, sample encounter, ecology, society, and typical treasure along with a section on lore for each creature from DC 15 to DC 44. These additional tools allow the GM to get the most bang for his buck and quickly insert the monsters into his campaign as appropriate.
My favorite is probably the molydeus. It’s a creature I recall from the old Planescape books that was described as something even a balor would fear. With it’s dancing battle axe of vorpal and it’s numerous innate powers, while it’s not necessarily something a balor would fear, it’s CR 19 insures that all but epic levels characters will respect this demon enforcer’s authority. It was also nice to see manes and rutterkin again as those are perfect minors for lower level adventures.
One of the things I liked least about the book is it’s take on demon lords. The book has deliberately weakened the demon lords to make them possible to fight at the end of the normal progression of the campaign. This means that a standard group of four twentieth level characters should be able to take Dagon or Pazuzu or even older favorites like Orcus.
A strange thing since the other official source of these demon lords statistics, Dragon magazine, is going a different route and will continue to go that route of more powerful demon lords, nor that many people thought that the demon lords as they first appeared in the Book of Vile Darkness were underpowered to begin with.
I can understand the reasoning. There’s a difference between being awed by how powerful a creature is an actually using it, but in the end, for me, it just doesn’t make sense and it’s not a change I like, and it’s not a direction I like. Why have epic rules in the core book, Dungeon Master’s Guide, if they’re not going to be supported? It also goes against the fact that the standard demons and devils were upgraded in the transition to 3.5. So the lesser are upgraded and the princes are downgraded?
Another problem with this approach is that it makes the demon lords very similar in power levels all about. In the “good old days” (god I’m old!) there were noticeable differences between the demon lords and it showed in their game stats. Now there’s very little difference in the power spread.
I know, someone will point out the quarter page on improving the demon lords and go, “See, they are supporting your campaign”, but that’s weak at best. Thankfully, it is true that it’s easier to augment a creature than depower it so I’ll be taking that advice or simply using a third part resource like Tome of Horrors when I need a demon lord to actually you know, be more powerful than a balor.
For those still looking for a weaker version, there is going to be a web update on the Wizards website that provides aspects of the demon lords that should be useful for lower powered campaigns.
Demon lords covered are as follows; Baphomet (CR 20), Dagon (CR 22), Demogorgon (CR 23), Fraz-Urb’luu (CR 21), Graz’zt (CR 22), Jubilex (CR 19), Kostchtchie (CR 21), Malcanthet (CR 21), Obox-ob (CR 22), Orcus (CR 22), Pale Night (CR21), Pazuzu (CR 22), Yeenoghu (CR 20), and Zuggtmoy (CR 21).
Demons start off with name, then an italic description of the creature. Game stats are presented in the new style. Lore for each creature is included which ranges from knowledge checks DC 20 to DC 35. Strategy and tactics covers basic combat formulas and each section ends with servants, enemies, and goals. Each entry is rather short and those seeking further information should check for the Dragon magazine articles featuring each demon.
Afterwards, we move onto chapter four, Trafficking With Demons. It’s a section for players and game masters and points out appropriate PrCs as well as introducing new feats and spells. One of the first character roles mentioned is Demon Hunter. Those more interested in such information should hunt down Goodman Game’s Demon Hunter’s Handbook.
Other roles include demon master, demon summoner or demon worshipper. Because, you know if you didn’t put the word demon in front of it in a book about demons, people would become confused. Those former roles are generally better for an evil or ‘vile’ campaign.
While the book doesn’t include any new PrCs, it does not which ones are appropriate and what source they come from. It covers recent books like the Fiendbinder from Tome of Magic as well as older books like the Book of Vile Darkness for the Thrall. It’s a short section and well, a fairly obvious one. There’s no “Wow!” factor in reading that one role a player might take is a demon hunter, especially when it mentions a demon hunting PrC like the Knight of the Chalice as from it’s very background, it’s an obvious choice. It’s a good cross-promotion bit for those who may not have those books but for those who do, merely a reminder.
Some of the feats include abyssal heritor feats and vile feats. The former are not necessarily evil, but do reflect the chaotic nature of the Abyss and are a result of the mingling of the Abyss and Prime planes mingling. The latter on the other hand, are only available to character who are evil and intelligence and often come with their own costs and are granted by higher powers such as a demon lord.
Many of the heritor feats grow in power if you have more than heritor feat. For example, Claws of the Beast inflicts an extra +1 profane bonus to damage that inclurases by 1 for every two heritor feats you have. The vile feats range from knowing Dark Speech, which effects listeners depending on their alignment and level, to a ‘sacrifice’ feat, Evil Brand, that in and of itself is actually less useful than a normal feat, but is necessary to chain up to higher feats. Evil Brand provides a +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against evil creatures, a similar bonus to other +2 to two skill feats with a limit. But because of that you can gain Demonic Conduit that increases the DC’s of your spells against lawful and good targets. Useful but still limited. Good for those casters who want to showcase their ‘evil’ nature.
Spells are arranged by class and in alphabetical order. For sorcerers and wizards, they also include division by school. Domains are also included as follows; corruption, demonic, entropy, fury, ooze, and temptation.
Spells vary in utility and level from enhancing your senses such as the 7th level Fiendish Clarity that grants you darkvision and allows you to see in margical darkness and see invisible and detect good, to the 3rd level blackguard spell, demon wings where you can fly at your land speed.
For those who need a grounding or organization to get the most out of their play, or GMs looking for more evil, the organization The Black Cult of Ahm should fit the bill. While not a PrC, it does have an entry requirement. This organization studies demons. Members come from various ethos and alignments and depending on the branch, the Cult may wind up helping or hindering the characters.
Information includes how the cult fits into the campaign setting, different DC checks for players to seek out knowledge of them from DC 15 to DC 30, brief ideas on how to adapt them for a campaign, and two sample encounters so the GM can use them right away.
In addition to the cult itself, we have the Black Scrolls of Ahm. This is not one item, but rather the collected works of Tulket nor Ahm whose explorations of the Abyss were written down in the Black Scrolls. These scrolls provide a knowledge bonus to knowledge planes checks and have different rules for providing higher bonuses depending on how many different scrolls the character has. In addition, each scroll has a cumulative change of summoning a fiend associated with the scroll. Said fiend’s job is to steal and destroy the scroll as demons don’t want knowledge of their plane out in the open. To count that, the books can teleport away using either planeshift or teleport. Doing so resets the cumulative percentage chance.
The Black Scrolls provide a different way of handling an artifact and the different write ups from the Abyssal Mundus to the Rubric of Tulket no Ahm provide several different options for the GM to add to his campaign. If nothing else, they act as good bargaining chips when dealing with the Black Cult of Ahm.
Chapter five, Into the Abyss, provides details on the Abyss. One of the interesting things is that reading through it, it almost reads a little like the section on Shiggarreb, a qlippoth lord from Green Ronin’s Book of Fiends.
Shiggarreb and her followed used the primordial stuff of chaos to create and destroy… they continued their mad experiments until hosts of ghaeles brought the qlippoth civilization tumbling down. Compare this to “Faerie Queen Morwel…ordered her ghaele knight legions to launch a devastating raid upon the Plain of Inifnite Portals.”
Shiggarreb then becomes a good replacement for The Queen of Chaos and the qlippoths of Book of Fiends make good substitutes for the obyriths.
Denizens of the abyss covers the basics; tanar’ri, obyriths, loumaras, mortals petitioners and deities. Under mortals, brief mention is made of various Planescape fan favorite factions like the Dustmen and the Doomguard. The obyrith’s are the ancient Prerequisite:-tanar’ri race and the loumaras are the new breed. In some ways, as they are “the fitful last dreasm of a dying pantheon of evil gods”, they could even be related to something far off like the Dark Plea from Malhavoc or the Far Realm as those far off entities dream deep and disturbing dreams. The tie into madness when seeing the loumaras can help cement any such connection a GM makes.
The different areas of the Abyss each include details on how to move about them, as well as various encounter tables. For example, if upon the Abyssian Ocrean, you may encounter tiefling pirates or while traveling the River Styx, have to fight off a Chaos beast. A nod is given to the fan favorite Charon, “a godlike yugoloth” who doesn’t both his passengers but a few of the boatmen do indeed seek the lives and treasures of their passengers. For those who want big ships, the book includes mention of the Ships of Chaos, “titanic magical vessels”.
One of the nice things about the book is how many ‘winks’ it provides to fans of the older material such as including the Infinite Staircase and the River Styx. These little bits help tie the various editions together and provide good reason to break out the old Planescape material when looking for ways to get more details for game use.
Those looking for other ways to traverse the outer planes might want to check out the Book of Eldritch Might III and it’s Nexus, a location that ties into various other settings. It could quite easily be used as a center point to link the different layers of the Abyss together.
The Abyss is certainly not standard traveling and has it’s own unique hazards and terrain features. These include things like viper trees that can attack those who come to close or memory fog, which causes confusion in those who dwell in it overlong.
The majority of this section though, deals with layer descriptions. Layers start off with name, layer number, ruler, traits, background with planar traits detailed, denizens, locales, encounters, and adventure hooks. This often includes overland maps and a specific map of a location.
Included are the following planes with leader; Pazunia (Pazuzu), Azzagrat (Graz’zt), Demonweb (Lolth), Thanatos (Orcus), The Grand Abyss (none, contested), Twelvetrees (none), The Iron Wastes (Kostchtchie), The Wells of Darkness (unclaimed), The Gaping Maw (Demogorgon), Hollow’s Heart (Fraz-Urb’luu), Shedaklah (Juiblex and Zuggtmoy), Yeenoghu’s Realm (Yeenoghu), Androlynne (Pale Night), Shendilavri (Malcanthet), and The Endless Maze (Baphomet).
To take a closer look, the Demonweb is the 66th layer, ruled by Lolth with no gravity outside Lolth’s web and is infinite. Here, evil or chaotic spells work as if the caster was twice his normal level. Web spells are twice their normal area of effect. Spider climb lasts twice as long. Summoning spells summon vermin.
Touches like this make each layer a custom fit for it’s ruler and often pits some advantage in the ruler’s hands. In terms of denizens, Lolth has Eclavdra as her chief diplomat and mortal ruler of her organization as well as Gethshuq, a powerful bebilith who announces Lolth’s coming to the Materal Plane. Others like Laveth, one of Lolth’s children, seek to take the Demonweb for their own.
In terms of locales, the map shows the Demonweb overview. This includes different portals including connections to Istivin, the Ship of Lolth, the Labyrinith of Arachne and others.
One of the nice things about the planes detailed is that some of the lend themselves to adventuring easily. A high level party that owes a debt to the Court of Stars of fey creatures in general may be called upon to fight in Androlynne where trapped eladrins from the war that destroyed the obyrith struggle for survival. On the other hand, the players may have to seek out a prisoner in one of the Wells of Darkness. Perhaps a GM using Tome of Magic decides that some of the vestiges that a player calls upon are located here and they want out.
Appendix I: Lords of the Abyss, provides a breakdown of different demon lords with name, title, concerns, and layer. This includes those detailed here, as well as those mentioned in previous books, but not detailed. For example, Rhyxali is the Queen of Shadow Demons on layer 49, Shaddonon.
Appendix II, Layers of the Abyss, provides a breakdown on over fifty layers with layer number, common name and ruler. This includes if the plane is contested or has no ruler.
Appendix III is an index of demons with the demons listed in alphabetical order, includes their category (demon, tanar’ri, loumara, or obyrith), and source. They’ve done a good job of getting even minor entries like the abyssal drake from the Draconomicon, but don’t touch any of the various Dragon magazines. It also includes a breakdown of demons by CR, which revises the CR listing. Without a listing of appropriate game mechanic changes to the creatures proper though, some of the changes seem odd. The klurichir can summon balors but is now weaker than them. Some type of web supplement would be great here.
My biggest problem with the book is the strength ratings of the demon lords. Despite that, the demon lords are usable as is and will probably now see more use than they would have from the Book of Vile Darkness. In addition, those lazy and wanting more powerful game stats can still use the Book of Vile Darkness, the Tome of Horrors from Necromancer Games or the various articles that are still running in Dragon Magazine.
The writing is evocative and brings forth different ideas quickly. While a lot of material has its origins in different material and perhaps even different companies books (Book of Fiends I’m eyeing you), it all seems to fit together well. The biggest problem isn’t in the quality of the content, but in the amount of it. At 160 pages, it’s impossible to do the Abyss justice when covering the politics, entities, layers, and potential adventurers. This could easily have been the first book of the Abyss as opposed to the first Fiendish Codex. Some may cry that there are no prestige classes here but as the new format eats so much space, I’m thankful that no PrCs are included.
If you’re game demands official 3.5 updates to demon lords and their minions and you want new subtypes of demons and more adventure seeds than you can shake a stick at, Hordes of the Abyss is for you.
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