Ideas for adventure path for the plane of Limbo

[Celebrim]

The Plain of Garbage: You have arrived at a rusty iron gate set in a crumbling brick wall some 12' high. The gates are open and one of the hinges is broken causing one of the gates to hang at an awkward angle. Above the gate is an iron scrollwork arch reading, "...B....U...MP". Unfortunately, too many letters are missing to make out the original meaning of the arch. There is a foul stench in the air. Through the gate may be seen a gently rolling field containing broken objects of every description - glass, metal, brick, stone, cloth, paper, and refuse of every sort. The plain extends as far as the eye can see.
The wall may be climbed or flown over should the party not wish to pass through the gate. It is also possible to go under the wall and reach the underside of the plain, but this is not recommended as no location is ever reachable from the underside no matter how far the character's journey. With the exception of only being inhabited by chaos elementals, and gravity being null below the plain, it is otherwise identical to the upper side.
The Plain of Garbage is one of the largest permanent features of Limbo (or at least permanent enough to have existed as long as there are records). As such, it is home to an unusually large number of beings and life forms relative to most of Limbo. It is even said that there are several large semi-nomadic communities (the Market and the Circus among others, as well as several rumored border towns) dwelling on the plain, and there are rumors of well guarded gates to the planes of Archeron and the Abyss hidden somewhere on its seemingly infinite surface. The players should not encounter any of these features unless they direct a guide to lead them there. For each hour spent on the plane of garbage, there is an 80% chance of a wandering encounter. Consult the following table:

Roll Encounter No. Appearing
01-11 Rot Grubs 2-20
11-22 Giant Flies 3-30
23-26 Lost Soul 1
28-30 Disembodied Soul 1
31-38 Petitioners 5-20
39-42 Maniacs 5-20
43-50 'Bag Ladies' or 'Beach Combers' 1
51-52 Red Slaad 1
53-54 Blue Slaad 1
55 Green Slaad 1
56 Chasme 1
57 Quicklings 1-20
58-64 Gibberlings 3-60
65 Buckawns 1-20
66-72 Neo-Ogutyh 1
73-78 Gibbering Mouther 1
79-80 Boogle 1-6
81-87 Escaped Nightmare 1
88-89 Zombies 5-20
90-98 4 HD Chaos Elementals 1-4
99-00 Chaos Elementals (2-16 HD) 1

Lost Soul: A deranged character of 9-14th level (20% cleric, 30% mage, 5% druid, 5% barbarian, 10% thief, 30% fighter), trapped in Limbo. They have attributes and equipment appropriate to their class and level (but never potions or scrolls, and charged items like wands or staves or 100% likely to be made of chaos stuff). They possess a randomly chosen insanity, and all possess the compulsive collecting neurosis described below. If the reaction of the character to the party is favorable, they may with muddled hints recall their own history - and give the distinct impression that this is the all to probable fate of characters. Seventy percent are hunted by an escaped nightmare that always seems to attack their companions in preference to them.
Disembodied Soul: Treat as ghosts. Note that it is impossible to become ethereal to attack these creatures physically while on Limbo.
Maniacs: A gang of garishly dressed and motley equipped beings that roam about the plain looking for victims to rob and murder. Treat as 2-5th level barbarian beserkers (+1 to hit, +1 to be hit) with 18/00 str. Magic weapons are required to harm them, they have 25% magic resistance, and regenerate 1 h.p. per round. They are immune to all attacks that undead are immune to (disease, sleep, poison, aging, critical hits, etc.). They continue to fight until they reach -10 h.p. Each is also infested with 1-10 rot grubs. They have the normal chance to possess magic items, but if they do, it is 99% probable that these will be formed from the stuff of chaos. Treasure is otherwise as typical for beserkers, but jewelry and gems are 75% likely to be formed from chaos and thus worthless if removed from the plane (and worth little or nothing on it).
'Bag Ladies' or 'Beach Combers': Treat as fighters of 2-5th level (20% also have cleric ability of the same level). Each possesses a randomly chosen insanity, and all possess the collecting neurosis described below. Magic weapons are required to harm them, they have 25% magic resistance, and regenerate 1 h.p. per round. They continue to fight until they reach -10 h.p. Twenty percent are infested by 1-10 rot grubs. If the reaction to the party is favorable, they will desire to barter for some possession of the character in exchange for some of the trash that they have collected. They are 25% likely to initially desire the most valuable possession each character has. They can be easily diverted to almost any other object, particularly shiny ones or playthings. Ninety percent of them have in addition to their many worthless or nearly worthless items, a piece of broken jewelry worth 1/4 normal value. Eighty percent also possess 1-3 random magic items, but 68% of these have been broken (or have no charges) and thus are worthless unless repaired or recharged (potions and scrolls may not be repaired, other wise the cost is not less than one half cost of the item assuming someone with the skill to repair them can be found). Fifty percent of the remaining items are actually composed of chaos matter, and 50% of the remaining are cursed in some fashion (so that only 8% will be completely useful).
Zombies: Treat as juju zombies for purposes of combat effectiveness. They may not be turned. Each is completely infested with rot grubs (several score to several hundred).

Traveling on the plain of garbage presents unique dangers in addition to those presented by the many inhabitants. Conversely, many of the normal dangers of Limbo are either reduced or eliminated here
Unlike most of the realms that the characters have been passing through, there is actual gravity and plentiful air (albeit noxious air) to breath on the plain of garbage. As such far less magical aid is required to survive in the place than elsewhere on the plane. The atmosphere if explored by flight proves to be quite shallow and thins roughly the same amount every 5 yards up as it would for every 1000 feet above sea level on most inhabited prime material worlds. Ears 'pop' painfully for every climb of more than a few yards. Above 40 yards altitude, it becomes increasingly uncomfortable. The air at ground level is slightly chilly and hazy, but tolerable and no serious discomfort occurs to anyone in normal clothing. There is no sky, and the chaos soup is visible overhead, but the effect of sensory overload is sufficiently muted that it is only experienced one quarter of the time (or none of the time as long as the character keeps his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, but such a character has much greater difficulty avoiding random incidents.) Owing to the thinness of the atmosphere, no real weather (other than the occasional fog) occurs on the plain, but there is a 50% chance per hour of noticing something like a funnel cloud meandering on the horizon and extending up to the limit of vision overhead. These funnels are generally indistinct and distant, and for the short time the characters will likely be present, they must be chased down in order to determine their nature. This is only successful 25% of the time and requires at least 1-6 turns whether successful or not. Up close it can be determined that the funnels are whirling columns of trash of various sorts falling to the ground. They are very dangerous if a character is unlucky enough to caught underneath one (1d100 damage per segment, buries area at 1d6 feet per segment, generally only over a single area for 1d4 segments), but this is fortunately unlikely (long term inhabitants must take precautions though). The funnels are the primary agents responsible for what little terrain exists on the plain, generally 'hills' and troughs of no more than 20 yards elevation change.
The other two forces shaping the plain are chaos elementals and occasional bombardment from objects originating in the chaos soup. Chaos elementals are fairly common on the plain, and though they generally bury themselves in the garbage and disappear after a time, some are large enough or grow large enough to eat temporary pits clean through the plain (which is rarely more than 60 yards deep). These pits slowly refill (anyone or anything that falls in hangs in mid-space).
Bombardment from the chaos above is at least as serious of a problem. Although large objects do not seem to be as prone to spontaneous creation in the vicinity of the plain of garbage as elsewhere in Limbo, there is still a roughly 10% chance per hour of 'unusual weather phenomena' effecting travelers. Near misses striking within a several hundred yards to several thousand yards of the characters are of course much more common (one will be visible every few seconds actually). Clouds of objects last half the normal duration. On the other hand, damage from solid objects such as boulders and ice blocks is double that in the chaos soup as the character is flattened into the garbage. Such objects also kick up debris for 2-12 damage in a radius about their point of impact equal to twice their diameter. Falling fires tend to set the flammable portion of the trash on fire and can rage over large areas. There is a 10% chance per hour of noticing the smoke and flames of one such large fire on the horizon.
Walking across a garbage pile filled with broken glass, nails, and shards of sharp metal can be extremely hazardous. For every hour that anyone walks in the trash, there is a 50% chance of being affected as by a caltrop unless precautions are taken to protect the feet.
Some of the dangers of the Plain of Garbage are quite subtle. There is a 50% chance per day of journeying upon the plain that the person will inexplicably and 'luckily' discover something that they believe that had been forever lost. This event tends to happen at least once per wayfarer, and tends to become more infrequent the more often this former possession is ignored. This object may or may not be intact, but it is always something that was once highly valued by the person. Picking up such an item and most especially taking possession of such an item is always detrimental to the health. If the person removes the item from Limbo, they are always subject to a subtle curse of a random and unpredictable sort. However, the most immediate and ever present danger is the so-called 'beach comber', 'collecting', or 'bag lady' neurosis that is invariably imparted to the finder should they retain possession of the item for long. At the moment that the item is first touched, and every day that it is possessed thereafter, the possessor must make a saving throw vs. spells (modified by wisdom) or be subject to a minor but progressive insanity.
This neurosis first manifests itself as the conviction that the character will never lose anything if they only keep it in their immediate possession. The character feels uncomfortable unless they can see the object, and will not travel without it, place it in a bank, leave it behind, or put it into storage. As the neurosis continues, the number of objects so protected begins to increase, and the value of the object so loved begins to decrease. At this stage, the neurotic begins to exhibit the opinion that no object is so valueless that it should be discarded. All objects possess a definable (if unlikely or impractical) future use, no matter what their condition. It is insufficient to suggest that the object could be replaced should the need arise, as the sufferer will maintain obstinately that this object will have special value and that it is necessary to insure that you will have a needed object at the moment it is needed and not a moment later. Eventually, the condition worsens to the point that the sufferer begins to feel the need to search through and collect all discarded or unwanted objects that he encounters because of their perceived future utility. Characters at this advanced stage have no concept of actual value, and instead adhere to a set of incomprehensible internal notions of value. They therefore may wish to exchange valueless objects for quite valuable ones, and conversely may consider random personal objects to be priceless. The full progression of the insanity transpires in days or years depending on the disposition of the character. Because of this slowness, it is not always immediately apparent either that a curse is beginning to take effect or what the cause of the curse is.
It is possible to halt the progression of the curse by taking the item from the character, but such an action is likely to cause a violent reaction immediately, and will later cause intermittent depression or even catatonia depending on the length of time the character has possessed the cursed item. The character is also likely to desire to seek for the missing item. Remove curse is effective in alleviating the suffering provided it succeeds against magic cast at effectively 15th level. However, the curse can never be removed from the item itself, save perhaps by a greater god, and so long as item is possessed there is a normal chance that the curse will begin again anew.
Although most of these objects exhibit a curse that is only effective on a former possessor of the item, a small percent of such objects that are removed from the plane of Limbo exhibit a universally effective curse on whoever comes to possess them. This tends to be especially true of quite valuable items, but has been known to occur in even valueless items.
On rare occasions it has been known for this 'object' to be a long lost loved one of CN disposition.

 

[Celebrim]

The City of the Insane: At one distant edge of the plain of garbage arises a great hill, upon which is built - perhaps from debris from the plain, perhaps from illusion - a massive ruined city whose boundaries no one has ever measured. Those that have wandered its streets claim that they have never seen the same place twice. Some claim that it contains in ruin every building that has ever been built and ever will be built. It has no name, but is called simply the City of the Insane, for it is they who dwell there. This great open-air asylum is the final destination of many most demented of souls in the afterlife. It has no ruler, no order, no hierarchy, no laws, and no governors, but at its center is Ssendam and though no one in the city serves him, none can oppose him. If Ssendam can be said to have a will, then all there do his will whether they know it or not.
The city is crumbling and decaying in all places, which is odd because there is never any sign that anyone is building anything. Many of the buildings seem to lean and tilt in disconcerting fashion, and though there is much sign by way of rubble that they collapse, none has ever been observed to do so. It has no districts, few shops, and even less industry. Its streets have no plan, and wander in a labyrinthine fashion all over and lead the unwary in circles and into dead ends with no seeming return passage. Its inhabitant have never been enumerated but it cannot be supposed that they number less than several tens of millions drawn from every intelligent species rational enough to produce specimens that are not.

 

[Shemeska]

Are my newer posts invisible? I admitted it is only true in Planescape! I was wrong! I'm sorry! Please stop bullying meT-T

I really don't think that that's true in Planescape at all is the thing.

The only thing that might suggest that are the death slaadi which at points have been described as CE rather than CN, and are the highest standard form of slaad. However they're also corrupted by evil, rather than it being a natural state of slaadi to become evil as they become more powerful.

And I don't mean to bully if it came off that way, I'm just nitpicky about planar lore.

 

[Dozen]

Don't get so upset. Everyone gets contridicted, corrected, and argued with. That's part of the appeal. As for Planescape, it's not even true in Planescape. It might possibly true in 4e, which has reduced I believe the two axis alignment system to a single axis where Lawful Good is more good than Good and Chaotic Good doesn't exist, but I'm not an expert on such things. In the mean time, this isn't me bullying you. Me bullying you feels much more like a two-by-four to the face. I can see you are new. I'm not going to get out the full arsenal of rhetoric on a new guy.

Hold that thought. I don't consider a good trashing on stupidity 'bullying'. That is not against me, that's against a statement. Arguments never should be about who is right, even though some people seem to think so. They are about finding out what is right. I'm only a fresh recruit to ENWorld; I was too ashamed of my grasp on the English language back then to contribute to foreign communities. I'm not new to D&D, and not new to debates. Feel free to unleash Hell upon me, and I'll try not to get butthurt for calling me a newbie, or your apparent disregard to think about what I said. Ah, and no offense to anyone who plays it, but 4th Edition content will enter my games when the Citadel of Fire freezes over.

I really don't think that that's true in Planescape at all is the thing.

The only thing that might suggest that are the death slaadi which at points have been described as CE rather than CN, and are the highest standard form of slaad. However they're also corrupted by evil, rather than it being a natural state of slaadi to become evil as they become more powerful.

And I don't mean to bully if it came off that way, I'm just nitpicky about planar lore.

I do recall the lore about Death Slaadi. In fact, I think I mentioned them in the post that started all this.
I believe I already know why you two oppose me. Look, both of you, I know my reasoning behind this is not written anywhere, but there is one. I do not consider chaos an ultimately evil force, or law an ultimately good one. Such a notion is closeminded, and incredibly unreasonable, and I cannot percieve who in his right mind would arrive at the conclusion without an indiscernable mass of logical fallacies. Please, For Lastai's sake, do not even for a moment assume I'm too much of an idiot to not see that.

As for Planescape... The short explanation would be that while chaos and law were, originally, the way they are in other settings, it changed, as Asmodeus is a magnificent bastard. The long answer makes more sense, I promise.
I presume you have reasonable amount of knowledge of the Pact Primeval? You probably have seen the so called 'backstory' of it in the second Fiendish Codex, in any case. Then I don't have to tell you how obviously it's only shameless propaganda, either. Even if we could accept the idea that none of the Lawful deities who've been fighting the original, non-Tanari demons since time immemorial and possess Wisdom scores in the double digits had the common sense to read the fine print(because honestly, not even Lawful gods can be so trusting towards the people they wanted to throw out of the Heavens for being too ruthless and disgusting), or none of the Chaotic deities tried to interfere with just about everything that happened in the story(which, knowing the attitude of chaotic people in general, is just bullsh*t), Asmodeus could not have been there in the way he's presented, as he's not the original leader of Baator. That was good old Lucifer, who was driven away by Belzebub. Asmodeus took the Nine Hells from him, turned him into a giant slug we know today as Baalzebul, and started his scheme to, uh, take over the multiverse, presumably, we cannot know that for sure, but speculation on his endgame aside, the plan itself is pure genius.
The basis of (one of his) cons is to brainwash his people with propaganda, in a fashion typical to tyrants. The plan is going quite well, as every Baatezu without exception appears to genuinely believe every bit of the Pact Primeval's origin story. I'm not pulling that out of my ass, it's written in the Codex in cold, hard print. Now, it's safe to say the Archdevils and a few older devils who remain know it's completely made up, but Asmodeus keeps tabs on all but every grain of sand in Baator - they cannot widely spread the truth without repercussions, and smaller upheavals will be chocked to death. From a Devil's standpoint, it makes perfect sense: In their opinion, everyone on the side of Good are naive fools, and Chaos is the only philosophical wrong. Of course they are going to believe a story that supports their prejuices from every angle, at the very least to a degree.
The real story of how the Pact Primeval came to be is lost to the eons. We can safely assume whoever scribbled the three original copies of the Pact had some leverage on Lawful Good deities and forced them to approve of it in it's current form, and thwarted Chaotic attempts to stop him, if only by hiding the majority of it's contents very well. The pact itself also likely has tricky wording, so the gods could not possibly know for sure what the devils were up to. Why all the other deities who existed at the time remain silent is beyond me, but they're gods, they know what's the best for their own herds. Could have something to do with Asmodeus dumping hordes of devils on everyone who hears it, whatever.

For most settings, the plan ends here, but in Planescape, Asmodeus reached further. Belief shapes the Planes. That's the point of the setting, every plane and creature ever can exist within. Let us back up for a moment: Every single Baatezu believes the Pact Primeval's origin story is true. That is a lot of people. Now, the rest of the D&D world who heard of the Pact's story know, for a fact, that the story doesn't make any sense. We know Chaos and Law are independent of Morality. I repeat: we know. Factual knowledge is not belief. The people of the D&D world who actually bother to think about this(not much point to comparing their numbers to Devils') doesn't want it to not be true, because they are already fairly confident it isn't. They have proof and everything they see and know suggests they are right, it's only reasonable. The effort they put into proving it to themselves is miniscule. So there is the unified will of millions of devils versus pretty much nobody to change the extraplanar equalient of a boolean switch.
In practice, their belief is not powerful enough to shift all celestials into blabbering, well-intentioned madmen, but it can give the world an origin story. That's because normally, there isn't an origin story to speak of. The planes are the way they are because creatures believed them to be. Maybe the moment the idea of planes sparked among the original primes, the power of belief spawned these wonderful worlds for creatures of the tales to explore and inhabit. Maybe some of the planes were orginially empty or different and were filled with their features and inhabitants later, it doesn't matter. The belief in the Pact Primeval's origin only fills in a void, created something out of nothing. As the majority still thinks of them as they are, the Pact backstory cannot change anything in the creatures of the present: the Celestials remain Celestials, the Slaadi are the same Slaadi, and so on. But their reasons for being the way they are can and did change. It had to. We know belief has effect on casuality, otherwise the cosmology as we know it would have never came to be. And the more people believe Asmodeus is the first and only ruler of Baator, the less powerful are Lucifer and Baalzebul. People barely have a clue who the former was(is?), and he disappeared. The latter's past faded into obscurity, he is but a shadow of his former self. The holder of the Ruby Rod shaped the planes, alone, to their very core, and no one could do anything about it. Thus had he gained hold over the multiverse and diminished the power of his precedessors, which he uses to his advantage to this day.

Khm... So? What do you think? It's entirely possible my logic failed me at one point. In any case, it's beyond what you can call pure speculation or DM bias.

 

[Shemeska]

As for Planescape... The short explanation would be that while chaos and law were, originally, the way they are in other settings, it changed, as Asmodeus is a magnificent bastard. The long answer makes more sense, I promise.
I presume you have reasonable amount of knowledge of the Pact Primeval?

Oh I'm aware of it, but there's a few problems with it, some of which are demonstrably false. For instance, the gods mentioned in the PP weren't around at the time. Given when it happened on the time scale of planar history, it can be inferred that there were no deities at the time period. The "gods of law" mentioned in the PP aren't actual gods, but the primordial entities of Law (equivalent to the original CN pre-Spawning Stone slaadi, the NE baernaloths, the unknown progenitors of NG, etc). The PP is almost exclusively from the perspective of LN and later LE's conception of the cosmos. It doesn't include what was happening at the same time in the multiverse at the hands of NE (the NE planes were a pretty happening place during this period), whatever NG was up to, and whatever CN was originally up to before NE dugs it hooks in and we ended up with the Abyss and the obyriths. It's only a fraction of what was going on.

The gods proper didn't start any involvement till a much later era of the Blood War, and there's a decent amount on the topic in various PS sources. And ultimately they pulled out of any direct involvement in the Blood War for some very profound and mysterious reasons... none of which are even alluded to by the PP. Either it's ignorant of the wider scope of the conflict at the time, or it's such a later addition of material from later times and later reasons, with little fact from the original time period, (and pardon the obscure real world allusion) we might as well be calling the PP something like the Hadith of Asmodeus.

That was good old Lucifer, who was driven away by Belzebub. Asmodeus took the Nine Hells from him,

Not in Planescape canon he didn't. In PS and mainline Great Wheel history, Asmodeus fell from LN to LE, and after his fall into Baator he and his kindred the first baatezu displaced and largely eradicated the original Ancient Baatorians (who had been seeded there concurrently with the primordial Abyss being seeded with the Obyriths). Lucifer was briefly mentioned in a 1e article that wasn't canonical (placing one archdevil as ambassador to Canada or something gonzo like that), and mentioned offhandedly as a rumor in the 3e MotP, but not in the context of actual history across multiple sources.

From a Devil's standpoint, it makes perfect sense: In their opinion, everyone on the side of Good are naive fools, and Chaos is the only philosophical wrong. Of course they are going to believe a story that supports their prejuices from every angle, at the very least to a degree.

From a devil's perspective which would be worse, CG or CE? CE is a more immediate threat, and there's history (complex history) of why Evil has been eating itself for time immemorial, but it isn't exclusively because of the Law/Chaos split.

For most settings, the story ends here, but in Planescape, Asmodeus reached with his plan further. In Planescape, Belief shapes the Planes. [/quote]

All of the outsiders think that their way is the only way, but they're not erasing one another's planes, nor should a unified baatezu belief system trump anyone elses. I presume that the various outsiders more or less cancel one another out, leaving mortals to shift the balance, and it's also possible that the earliest of the alignment outsiders might themselves be eternal constants in the belief shapes reality system. We know that the earliest of the outer planes (LN/CN/NG/NE/N) existed well prior to the origin of both mortal life and later on gods spawned by mortal belief. Given that some of the earliest outsiders still exist, they may or may not themselves be altered in the same way that gods demonstrably are, or the way that portions of the planes have shifted before. The planes have altered from their original forms yes, but certain constants have not.

I'm also not inclined to grant Asmodeus that much influence or power compared to anyone else to fundamentally alter reality that way. YMMV.

 

[Dozen]

Oh I'm aware of it, but there's a few problems with it, some of which are demonstrably false.

Exactly, that's why I say it was made up in-universe.

For instance, the gods mentioned in the PP weren't around at the time. Given when it happened on the time scale of planar history, it can be inferred that there were no deities at the time period. The "gods of law" mentioned in the PP aren't actual gods, but the primordial entities of Law (equivalent to the original CN pre-Spawning Stone slaadi, the NE baernaloths, the unknown progenitors of NG, etc). The PP is almost exclusively from the perspective of LN and later LE's conception of the cosmos. It doesn't include what was happening at the same time in the multiverse at the hands of NE (the NE planes were a pretty happening place during this period), whatever NG was up to, and whatever CN was originally up to before NE dugs it hooks in and we ended up with the Abyss and the obyriths. It's only a fraction of what was going on.

The gods proper didn't start any involvement till a much later era of the Blood War, and there's a decent amount on the topic in various PS sources. And ultimately they pulled out of any direct involvement in the Blood War for some very profound and mysterious reasons... none of which are even alluded to by the PP. Either it's ignorant of the wider scope of the conflict at the time, or it's such a later addition of material from later times and later reasons, with little fact from the original time period, (and pardon the obscure real world allusion) we might as well be calling the PP something like the Hadith of Asmodeus.

That's new for me. Thanks for filling me in, I'm making notes.

All of the outsiders think that their way is the only way, but they're not erasing one another's planes, nor should a unified baatezu belief system trump anyone elses. I presume that the various outsiders more or less cancel one another out, leaving mortals to shift the balance, and it's also possible that the earliest of the alignment outsiders might themselves be eternal constants in the belief shapes reality system.

I'm also not inclined to grant Asmodeus that much influence or power compared to anyone else to fundamentally alter reality that way. YMMV.

Of course, if it wasn't for the strong opposition against CE outsiders, existence would be torn apart in short notice. But that's what I'm saying. Nobody opposes the Baatezu interpretation of creation with an equal amount of belief. Asmodeus doesn't have the sort of power either, but Devils do, and he controls devils like the puppets they are. That latter is hardly up for debate, the publishers can't seem to stop shooving content in our face that prasies his ingenious douchebaggery.

Not in Planescape canon he didn't. In PS and mainline Great Wheel history, Asmodeus fell from LN to LE, and after his fall into Baator he and his kindred the first baatezu displaced and largely eradicated the original Ancient Baatorians (who had been seeded there concurrently with the primordial Abyss being seeded with the Obyriths). Lucifer was briefly mentioned in a 1e article that wasn't canonical (placing one archdevil as ambassador to Canada or something gonzo like that), and mentioned offhandedly as a rumor in the 3e MotP, but not in the context of actual history across multiple sources.

Okay, what you said just now is silly. This is Planescape we're talking about. Everything is canon. It doesn't matter how obscure or old a source is, if it exists, it literally has to be there. In the greatest scheme of things, the two of us are in the setting. Nothing has to be true, it's enough to think it is. It doesn't matter which one really happened. So if Asmodeus really is the original ruler, then Baalzebul is an upstart, and Lucifer is wishful thinking, I admit that. It amounts to the same, nothing changes. Lucifer still doesn't exist(maybe he's a vestige?), Baalzebul is still a weakling of an Archdevil, and Asmodeus is Asmodeus. We both agree the PP's story is false on multiple levels either way.

Besides, 1st ed didn't really make a distinction between this world and the fantasy one. They said the Rakhasha are from India, for goodness' sake. It sounds stupid, but an archdevil can totally be a Canadian ambassador in Planescape. Why would we care is another story, but Planescape's question to everything is not 'Why?'. It's 'Why not?'. All in for the nonsense, let it flow! That's what keeps the world running!^^ Doesn't affect our games unless we want it to, so might as well.