D&D 5E Monsters of Many Names - Wandering Monsters (Yugoloth!)

[Shemeska]

So, according to the canon you want to preserve, demons most certainly do not serve CE gods. Or is the wiki mistaken?

The wiki isn't, but you're reading things into it that it isn't saying.

Yochlol are pretty much exclusively servitors of Lolth. But what it's saying is that no other type of demon has such a profoundly specific connection to a deity. Other demons -many other demons in fact- serve evil gods, but no other group of demons like vrocks or babau or succubi as a type of fiend serve a single evil god or multiple evil gods, they don't have that intimate of a connection with any of them.

See the difference?

 

[Hussar]

Let me put it this way.

Three priests are sitting around a summoning circle, a priest of Bahumut, a priest of Lolth and a priest of Vecna.

The Bahumat priest casts gate, and summons a servitor of Bahumut and gets an archon.

The Lolth priest casts gate, and summons a servitor of Lolth and gets a yochlol.

The Vecna priest casts gate and summons a servitor of Vecna and gets... what? A demon? What kind of demon?

Note, if you add in a fourth evil priest, no matter what the god actually is, he or she casts gate and gets exactly the same thing as the Vecna priest - the exact same kind of demon.

Add in a CG priest and cast Gate and he gets an angel.

So, basically, evil priests, demon worshipping cultists and whatever, all draw from the same pool, but the good aligned gods get a better class of servitor?

 

[Alzrius]

Let me put it this way.

Three priests are sitting around a summoning circle, a priest of Bahumut, a priest of Lolth and a priest of Vecna.

The Bahumat priest casts gate, and summons a servitor of Bahumut and gets an archon.

The Lolth priest casts gate, and summons a servitor of Lolth and gets a yochlol.

The Vecna priest casts gate and summons a servitor of Vecna and gets... what? A demon? What kind of demon?

Note, if you add in a fourth evil priest, no matter what the god actually is, he or she casts gate and gets exactly the same thing as the Vecna priest - the exact same kind of demon.

Add in a CG priest and cast Gate and he gets an angel.

So, basically, evil priests, demon worshipping cultists and whatever, all draw from the same pool, but the good aligned gods get a better class of servitor?

Leaving aside the implausibility of this particular scenario happening - which does, ironically, serve as a good example how hypothetical situations are usually good examples of nothing except what the person making them is trying to prove - and also leaving aside the issue of the in-game characters knowing about the exclusivity (or lack thereof) of certain creatures to the service of certain deities, the scenario you described has a few problems.

For one thing, what does it matter what kind of demon the priest of Vecna receives? You haven't identified what kind of archon answers the priest of Bahamut receives (or why it would be an archon at all, and not a LG angel).

Secondly, your assertion that the second evil priest would, no matter what kind of evil god they serve, receive the same kind of demon, is wildly inaccurate. There's nothing to suggest that their summons would be a demon at all (particularly if they served a Lawful Evil god, which you left the possibility of when you outright said that this was no matter what god they served), let alone the exact same kind of demon.

Third, why would the Chaotic Good priest receive an angel and not, say, an eladrin (by which I don't mean an elf that can teleport)?

Finally, what you mean by "a better class of servitor" is very unclear, as there's no objective measurement for saying which of these summoned creatures is "better" than any other.

In other words, your scenario leaves much to be desired.

 

[Orius]

FWIW, this is basically what Hellbound: The Blood War has to say about fiendish priests. I don't know how much of this is contradicted by Faces of Evil.

Demon priests tend to be the most common fiendish priests. They prefer to serve gods who in 2e were ascended demon lords: Demogorgon, Baphomet, etc. In Lolth's case, 2e pretty much assumed she was just an evil god and a fallen member of the Seldarine, while ignoring Q1's appealation of Demon Queen of the Spiders (or whatever it was).

Devil priests tend to be somewhat rare. It's rather strongly implied that Asmodeus (I say implied because PS never mentions Asmo by name AFAIK; Hellbound just says the "high-ups" of the Nine Hells. Well, you don't get higher up than ol' Asmo) doesn't like devils serving various gods, seeing it as disloyal, so they tend to serve gods secretly. Though of course, if one wanted to make Asmo a full-fledged evil god, then he'd probably a good number of devil priests, but like I said he's not mentioned in PS.

Yugoloths never become priests. It says nothing about them hating gods, just that they don't bother with becoming priests. IIRC, according to the lore in the boxed set, the 'loths predate the mortal gods, so probably they're not impressed with them or something.

 

[Weather Report]

1) The Bahumat priest casts gate, and summons a servitor of Bahumut and gets an archon.

2) The Vecna priest casts gate and summons a servitor of Vecna and gets... what? A demon? What kind of demon?

3) Add in a CG priest and cast Gate and he gets an angel.

1) Or a Gold Dragon.

2) Or undead.

3) Or an Eladrin (the real ones).

 

[Hussar]

1) Or a Gold Dragon.

2) Or undead.

3) Or an Eladrin (the real ones).

Why would I get a dragon with a gate spell? Why would I get Undead with a gate spell? I mean, if you're going to get all technical about the mechanics, at least have the decency to read the spell first. It calls an extraplanar creature. Neither dragons nor undead are generally extra-planar.

However, with 3, at least the CG priest gets a servitor that specifically serves CG gods. Thank you for proving my point.

The evil priests though, get demons or devils, depending on alignment, regardless of diety.

 

[Shemeska]

However, with 3, at least the CG priest gets a servitor that specifically serves CG gods. Thank you for proving my point.

Umm no.

Eladrin don't specifically serve gods, CG or otherwise. They're just outsiders that match the alignment of the CG cleric in question, like archons for an LG cleric, demons for a CE cleric, devils for an LE cleric, etc.

 

[Alzrius]

Why would I get a dragon with a gate spell? Why would I get Undead with a gate spell? I mean, if you're going to get all technical about the mechanics, at least have the decency to read the spell first. It calls an extraplanar creature. Neither dragons nor undead are generally extra-planar.

Any creatures who is on a different plane than its plane of origin is extra-planar. If the gold dragon or undead didn't originate on the Prime Material Plane - which is certainly not unreasonable - then they're viable creatures to answer the gate spell. If you think this is contradicted in the text of the spell itself, I'm sure you'll have the decency to point it out.

However, with 3, at least the CG priest gets a servitor that specifically serves CG gods. Thank you for proving my point.

The evil priests though, get demons or devils, depending on alignment, regardless of diety.

He didn't prove your point; as Shemeska noted, eladrin do not specifically serve Chaotic Good deities, any more than demons serve Chaotic Evil deities. You're not making sense here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I thought the demons and devils served demon lords and devil princes. Seems a bit odd that good gods get their own, special servitors, but, evil goods get Asmodeus' leftovers.

If you think evil gods don't get their own galaxy of supporting supernatural beings, you didn't read the half of my post wherein I described undead as filling that role in general in D&D, regardless of if the god's LE, CE, or NE. LE gods can also sometimes get devils, too. It's like the cherry on top of the evil cake.

Additionally, just because balors serve demon lords doesn't mean that some don't also serve deities, and just because pit fiends serve Asmodeus doesn't mean that some don't also serve deities, and that's been a core part of their existence of demons and devils from early on in this game, too. I can draw another Venn diagram, if that helps.

So, according to the canon you want to preserve, demons most certainly do not serve CE gods. Or is the wiki mistaken?

If you think that's what the wiki article says, you didn't read the very sentence you highlighted. This particular kind of demon serves Lolth very intimately, and, it is implied, other demons also serve other gods, just not necessarily so intimately. Meaning, in other words, that while yochlol are found specifically and almost exclusively under Lolth's guideance, balors (or whatever) can be found in the service of any CE god, or even independent of the gods.

So, are we agreed? Evil gods don't really need a splinter group of yugoloths to serve them, since they have plenty of other things to serve them, including specialized servitors, demons, devils, and undead. Decades of D&D have gone by with no one really lacking for servants of evil deities.

Glad we've come to an accord on the "lets not change yugoloths categorically to become the servants of evil deities," at least.

Why would I get a dragon with a gate spell? Why would I get Undead with a gate spell? I mean, if you're going to get all technical about the mechanics, at least have the decency to read the spell first. It calls an extraplanar creature. Neither dragons nor undead are generally extra-planar.

Well, first of all, you're assumption that dragons and undead aren't extraplanar is false. Any creature can be an extraplanar creature. Just needs to be on a different plane. A gold dragon hanging out in Bahamut's court? A lich who lives in Vecna's home?

There's also the magic of templates in the last edition the Gate spell appeared in.

Bahamutite could also get a celestial gold dragon.

Vecnite could also get a fiendish vampire.

Since they're high enough level to cast Gate, they might be able to even get an avatar.

Demons are just one kind of thing you can call on.

 

[steeldragons]

But now I'm getting pie, because I explained my point better and illustrated how the article has bearing on the conversation!

Dunno how well you illustrated the bearing, but you did manage to get all of that puffed up hoopla into a couple of sentences.

So, here...

I won't have it said I am not a 'Dragon of my word.

Happy Sunday, all.
--SD