Shades of Eternity
Legend
we should have a machine that opens a portal, but it's like a vending machine..
you have to put in soul tokens to plane shift.
you have to put in soul tokens to plane shift.
D&D General How do devils actually get to the world from hell?
- Thread starter Stalker0
- Start date
Audiomancer
Adventurer
Most of them travel to the Material Plane via Oakland… which, as it turns out, is only about a half-hour from Hell (and vice-versa).
Teleport Without Error used to work between planes. Any fiend with that ability could come and go as they please, subject to the usual chance of error.
Of course, any fiend that teleports to the Prime Material Plane and promptly dies because they appear in a solid object would likely face mockery or worse. So there's plenty of reason for fiends to reduce their chance of error by letting others summon them or use a hell portal.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Depends on the setting, I should think. Even within D&D proper, different settings have different rules, e.g. Eberron (IIRC) has demons bound under the world, the result of Eberron trapping Khyber beneath her body for Khyber's murder of their brother, Siberys.
In my Jewel of the Desert setting, there are three ways they can "enter" the world to some degree.
1. Very powerful (we're talking balors and the like) demons and devils can personally travel to the mortal world, though this is costly to them--they'll be weaker than they would otherwise be. They can also use this same power to send their servants, who won't be weakened as much but will still be weakened.
2. Mid-level fiends (and anything more powerful) can project into the mortal world under certain circumstances, usually related to symbolic activity on the part of mortals (symbols and symbolism have objective, tangible power to outsiders like fiends and celestials.) These projections are lesser, more like reflections, but they come with added safety (see below).
3. Any fiend, regardless of power, can be summoned into the mortal world by a spell of appropriate power, usually accompanied by some kind of offering. This is mostly done by Waziri mages or particularly reckless Sha'iri (=sorcerers), as neither Kahina (=Druids and Shaman) nor Safiqi priests (=Clerics)/Temple Knights (=Paladins) have any real motive to call on fiends for help or guidance.*
Properly killing any outsider is a challenge, as they'll technically just discorporate. Discorporation is very painful, and significantly weakens them--meaning their rivals or enemies could kill them for good in their weakened state, unless they can re-corporate in a safe place. But if you can trap a fiend (or any outsider) that has bodily entered the world, in a place where planar travel is cut off entirely, then when you kill them they do, in fact, die for real. The party has successfully killed one greater succubus this way, and that's one (of several) reasons why powerful fiends rarely choose to travel bodily into the world. It's not worth the risk; sending servants bodily, or projections, gets most of what they want without the cost.
Beyond that, devils make pacts and demons make deals. A "pact" is a formal agreement, which both parties are magically bound to obey. A "deal" is a completely informal, often freewheeling agreement that both parties can reneg upon, though a demon that gets a reputation for breaking deals is going to find their potential "customers" demanding rather more payment up front, so to speak. Most demons don't really bother with dealmaking anyway though. Devils love pacts--and, importantly, they specifically design their pacts to be things that both sides want to complete. Getting your soul is, almost always, a lame consolation prize compared to whatever they've asked you to do on their behalf.
*Kahina generally draw on spirits, which are not outsiders--this is why Safiqi banishment magic doesn't work properly on them, nor on the spirits of the dead. Safiqi do not generally summon anything, though they claim (and the party has found reason to believe) that celestials once walked this world and gave guidance to its denizens. Tenryu Shen, a gold dragon from the faraway land of Yuxia, the Jade Home, is functionally part-celestial and thus afforded immense respect by the Safiqi priesthood despite being a foreigner with somewhat divergent beliefs.
In my Jewel of the Desert setting, there are three ways they can "enter" the world to some degree.
1. Very powerful (we're talking balors and the like) demons and devils can personally travel to the mortal world, though this is costly to them--they'll be weaker than they would otherwise be. They can also use this same power to send their servants, who won't be weakened as much but will still be weakened.
2. Mid-level fiends (and anything more powerful) can project into the mortal world under certain circumstances, usually related to symbolic activity on the part of mortals (symbols and symbolism have objective, tangible power to outsiders like fiends and celestials.) These projections are lesser, more like reflections, but they come with added safety (see below).
3. Any fiend, regardless of power, can be summoned into the mortal world by a spell of appropriate power, usually accompanied by some kind of offering. This is mostly done by Waziri mages or particularly reckless Sha'iri (=sorcerers), as neither Kahina (=Druids and Shaman) nor Safiqi priests (=Clerics)/Temple Knights (=Paladins) have any real motive to call on fiends for help or guidance.*
Properly killing any outsider is a challenge, as they'll technically just discorporate. Discorporation is very painful, and significantly weakens them--meaning their rivals or enemies could kill them for good in their weakened state, unless they can re-corporate in a safe place. But if you can trap a fiend (or any outsider) that has bodily entered the world, in a place where planar travel is cut off entirely, then when you kill them they do, in fact, die for real. The party has successfully killed one greater succubus this way, and that's one (of several) reasons why powerful fiends rarely choose to travel bodily into the world. It's not worth the risk; sending servants bodily, or projections, gets most of what they want without the cost.
Beyond that, devils make pacts and demons make deals. A "pact" is a formal agreement, which both parties are magically bound to obey. A "deal" is a completely informal, often freewheeling agreement that both parties can reneg upon, though a demon that gets a reputation for breaking deals is going to find their potential "customers" demanding rather more payment up front, so to speak. Most demons don't really bother with dealmaking anyway though. Devils love pacts--and, importantly, they specifically design their pacts to be things that both sides want to complete. Getting your soul is, almost always, a lame consolation prize compared to whatever they've asked you to do on their behalf.
*Kahina generally draw on spirits, which are not outsiders--this is why Safiqi banishment magic doesn't work properly on them, nor on the spirits of the dead. Safiqi do not generally summon anything, though they claim (and the party has found reason to believe) that celestials once walked this world and gave guidance to its denizens. Tenryu Shen, a gold dragon from the faraway land of Yuxia, the Jade Home, is functionally part-celestial and thus afforded immense respect by the Safiqi priesthood despite being a foreigner with somewhat divergent beliefs.
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MechaTarrasque
Hero
This is more demons than devils, but I have always thought the purpose of demon lords is to help mortals make parts of the Material Plane to be sufficiently like the Abyss to be easily absorbed into the Abyss, and it seems like if you fairly close to absorption, demons could just hop over.
In my setting, anything that changes the type of a creature damages the fabric of the universe (and thus easy to absorb), so I have assigned changes to different demon lords, usually along the lines of anything that changes a mortal (humanoid, fey, giant, dragon, or elemental) into an aberration, monstrosity, fiend, or undead having some trait of the demon lord (like a tentacle attack for Demogorgon [or a trait that implies more than one head], a gore attack for Baphomet, or web walking for Lolth) with a few more quirky ones like anything that changes a beast into an aberration, monstrosity, fiend, or undead feeding Yeenoghu, anyone making a deal to become a fiend benefiting Graz'zt, or if the being transformed was a cleric, paladin, druid, or similar NPC, that empowers Pazuzu (who is quality over quantity). The Abyss has many sins, but stinginess isn't one of them, so multiple demon lords can benefit from one change.
In my setting, anything that changes the type of a creature damages the fabric of the universe (and thus easy to absorb), so I have assigned changes to different demon lords, usually along the lines of anything that changes a mortal (humanoid, fey, giant, dragon, or elemental) into an aberration, monstrosity, fiend, or undead having some trait of the demon lord (like a tentacle attack for Demogorgon [or a trait that implies more than one head], a gore attack for Baphomet, or web walking for Lolth) with a few more quirky ones like anything that changes a beast into an aberration, monstrosity, fiend, or undead feeding Yeenoghu, anyone making a deal to become a fiend benefiting Graz'zt, or if the being transformed was a cleric, paladin, druid, or similar NPC, that empowers Pazuzu (who is quality over quantity). The Abyss has many sins, but stinginess isn't one of them, so multiple demon lords can benefit from one change.
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