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

[Hussar]

Say what??? Sorry, I gotta stop you there - look in OD&D. Law and chaos were the only 'opposed metaphysical forces', there. It's 'good' and 'evil' that are the Johnny-come-latelys of D&D alignments, I think you'll find.

Besides which, if they're not opposed metaphysical 'sides' there's no real point in having them...

Note, Balesir, I did say AD&D.

Now, I've never read OD&D, but, in Basic/Expert, Law/Chaos was defined as good/evil. I mean, it's still Detect Evil, not Detect Law/Chaos. And, funnily enough, Protection from Evil, despite there not actually being an "evil" alignment.

 

[Hussar]

KM, upthread, you stated the following:

The difference, as far as the original non-PS version of the critter goes, is that you will not see a vrock and an erinyes working together. You WILL find a vrock and a mezzodemon working together, and you will find an erinyes and a mezzodemon working together. Mezzodemons will work with anyone to forward the cause of evil.

Now, I took that to mean that a Vrock and an Erinyes cannot work together. I stated as such and you responded with:

There was. It was called "alignment."

LE and CE don't get along. And because they're both E, they really don't get along (central to the idea of evil is advancement of yourself at cost of others, after all).

which I understood to mean that you think that LE and CE cannot work together.

I've never said anything about LE and CE always working together. All I said was that pre-Bloodwar, nothing in the rules really said one way or the other. They could or they couldn't as the DM decided. Post Bloodwar, you cannot have them working together, full stop. I mean, Shemeska states:

Demons and devils working together is like living magma being best friends with a living glacier.

which sounds, to me at least, that post Bloodwar, you cannot ever have demons and devils working together.

Am I misunderstanding something here?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've never said anything about LE and CE always working together. All I said was that pre-Bloodwar, nothing in the rules really said one way or the other. They could or they couldn't as the DM decided.

It's likely that I over-stated my point there. Rather than state it categorically, I should have given a caveat. So let me clarify.

Typically, you will not see a vrock and an erinyes working together. Demons and devils have different agendas and different goals and these goals are ultimately mutually exclusive. If demons destroy the world, the devils will have nothing left to rule, and if devils control the world, the demons will be unable to destroy it all, and so their goals are at cross-purposes. A given game may give the two an allegiance, however tenuous and fraught, but the differences between the two assure that they largely remain in different camps in most D&D games. It's not an absolute prohibition, merely a tendency.

Yugoloths in MM2 appearance are stated to work with both demons and devils. This is a notable thing about them, because of the aforementioned difference in goals and tendency to work at cross-purposes. This implies that if the yugoloths have any goals, it includes both the demons and the devils getting part of -- but not all -- of what they each want.

In some games, this rivalry between fiends isn't very important: their allegiance to Evil trumps their differences. In this case, they likely still retain independent operations, and different attitudes, and likely still have tense relations, due to their very different outlooks, actions, and goals. Yugoloths may be the glue that holds the team together, the Team Mom for Team Evil. Dragonlance might be a good example of this kind of setting.

In other games, this rivalry has exploded into genocidal wars. Yugoloths here may serve as traders, arms-dealers, and neutral parties between the sides of the conflict, working with both sides. Planescape might be a good example of this kind of setting.

In any game that employs these alignments, the division between creatures that are Chaotic Evil and creatures that are Lawful Evil is real. What varies is the intensity of that division. Even at its most amicable, it's still strained. Even at its most acrimonius, it's still not categorical.

Post Bloodwar, you cannot have them working together, full stop.

That's not accurate. It's not accurate to talk in binary terms like "cannot." Even in Planescape, there's examples of demons and devils who have -- at least momentarily -- laid aside their hatred for other purposes. Heck, since everything canon in Dragonlance is also canon in Planescape, there's an example right there.

No setting is really monolithic can/cannot.

 

[Hussar]

That's not accurate.

So, you disagree with Shemeska?

Sure, demons and devils ultimately have differing agendas, but, that's fine. There's a difference between "having different agendas" and "locked in an eternal war devastating entire planes". In Planescape, it's the latter. In AD&D, it's the former. There's nothing, in AD&D, particularly, preventing demons and devils working together. In Planescape, it would be extremely difficult to justify. As Shemska says, it would be like mixing fire and ice. Just doesn't work.

Me, I have no particular problems with a devil having a demon thug to go do the heavy lifting.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, you disagree with Shemeska?

I think [MENTION=11697]Shemeska[/MENTION] knows the lore well enough that he can probably cite at least a handful of examples of demons and devils working together that are at least rumored to be true in the lore. Planescape plays up the conflict between them, though, so it's pretty exceptional. It's not wrong to say it's like fire and ice in PS, it's just not the whole story.

Me, I have no particular problems with a devil having a demon thug to go do the heavy lifting.

Now, personally, I don't see that happening much. I see demons, being Chaotic, as unpredictable and wild, even the dumb ones. So a devil who hired one would suddenly have an entity that she could not control wreaking havoc on her great plans. It'd be a liability, an unknown quantity. And that demon, even if it was dumb, would resent being used by anything else, and especially something that wanted it to consider anything more than what it personally wanted. Which would probably result in the two coming to blows pretty quickly, the devil saying, "THIS IS NOT PART OF THE PLAN!" as it was clawed into and the demon saying, "THAT'S WHY IT'S FUN!" as its flesh burned and roiled.

Yugoloths in that milieu make better mercs, because they're likely to at least not work directly against the devil. Sure, the erinyes will never be in complete control of that mezzoloth, so it's a risk, but the mezzoloth has a sense of the value of control and planning. The mezzoloth has nothing against the erinyes's plans. Even if it's not exactly an enthusiastic follower, it'll take delight in executing suffering where it can, and not worry too much about tearing down the draconian kingdom the erinyes is carefully trying to set up. At least not until the Vrock hires it to do that.

But the intensity of that rivalry is part of each game's own custom idea about alignment and the planes and whatnot. There's plenty of room for variation. Maybe in your game it's more of a friendly rivalry, a sort of Legolas-and-Gimli thing but with horrible stingers and scales and bat wings and poison and fire. There's certainly room for both in D&D in general.

 

[Kinak]

Maybe in your game it's more of a friendly rivalry, a sort of Legolas-and-Gimli thing but with horrible stingers and scales and bat wings and poison and fire.

Tanar'ri and Baatezu seeing how many souls they can drag down into the depths with Yugoloths keeping score? I'm down.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Stoat]

I will assert the same thing for MM2 hordelings, also. I mean, what's the real difference between the system for random generation of hordelings in MM2 and random generation of creatures from the lower planes in Appendix F? At least at that time, AD&D simply didn't draw any major distinction between the play of these different creatures.

IMO, this is the essence of the whole debate. As best I can tell, the 1E fiends (devils, demons, daemons, demodands, hordelings, etc.) were not created according to any particular plan or for any particular reason other than, "That sounds cool, do that!" They are functionally identical and the only real distinction between them in the fiction is that some of them are LE, some are CE and others are NE. There really wasn't much else to differentiate them.

Planescape added some backstory to the pre-existing fiends by emphasizing their alignment differences. I don't much care for 9-point alignment, so I don't much care for those distinctions. Frex, I'd be happier if demons were the personification of disease, natural disasters and base crimes like murder and lust instead of simply being the personification of "Chaotic Evil" -- an abstract concept invented by Gygax that no two editions of the game have ever quite defined the same way.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see how that even remotely puts a mortal on the same level as a demon, archon, etc. A side effect of their faith or deific empowerment yes, but it doesn't make them a physical manifestation of their alignment like those outsiders.

Presumably some account is needed, though, of why a paladin can be turned but a cleric can't.

Gods aren't personifications of their alignment however. It varies to an extent on source, but they tend to be personifications of their portfolios and at times a reflection of their worshippers, but not physical manifestations of an alignment.

Plus there has always been a bit of a caveat regarding cross-alignment cooperation when it comes to good outsiders. Plus gods have relationships beyond alignment to take into consideration, especially when it's harkening back to real world mythology that didn't have D&D alignment. DDG was taking flavor and relationships from myth, while the ancient Greeks didn't write down that Zeus was CG and Athena LG, that was something added in for reasons that made sense to the DDG authors/designers/editors.

All this applies to devils and demons, though. There is nothing in the original MM about devils or demons being physical personifications of alignment:

• From MM p 16: "Demons are able to move from the own plane into those of Tarterus, Hades or Pandemonium . . . Demons are chaotic and evil; the smarter and stronger rule those of their kind who are weaker and less intelligent. . . Demons will never willingly serve anyone or anything."
  
  
• From MM p 20: "The inhabitants and rulers of the planes of hell are principally devils, the most powerful of lawful evil creatures. They somewhat resemble the demons of chaos in their general abilities . . . Devils follow a definite order, a chain of command, which they dare not break for fear of the arch-devils. Still, there is great rivalry, even open antagonism . . . They can move to the planes of Gehenna, Hades and Acheron at will."

Not only is there nothing there about being the physical incarnation of an alignment, but it is pretty clear that these creatures work in the same way as you describe deities - that is, they are mythological themes and tropes rendered in AD&D terms, including alignment.

Hence my conclusion that there is no reason why, in AD&D, a devil and demon could not meet up on Hades to engage in some joint project. The demon would wish to bully and take charge, of course, and the devil might be concerned if it was going against the will of an arch-devil, but that is personality and politics, not metaphysics.

And [MENTION=16786]Stoat[/MENTION], I agree with the analysis in your post (which somewhat ninjas mine, but was on other other page when I started typing this!). Planescape locks down, rigidifies and expands a whole lot of stuff which was left open and loose in AD&D. For those who were (or still are) playing in the original AD&D style, Planescape is a pretty noticeable change. It is not neutral, generic or inherent in what we were already doing.

 

[JamesonCourage]

In 3.5, I used the Great Wheel from the DMG, and I definitely had demons and devils work together once or twice. It wasn't the rule, but I saw no reason that it couldn't be the exception. And, their particular motivations made sense, in-game, so I saw no problem with it.

This isn't me advocating for the Great Wheel, or the Blood War, or anything. It's just me saying that even with it, it worked in my game. I guess I find the whole discussion a little weird. As always, play what you like

 

[Balesir]

In 3.5, I used the Great Wheel from the DMG, and I definitely had demons and devils work together once or twice. It wasn't the rule, but I saw no reason that it couldn't be the exception. And, their particular motivations made sense, in-game, so I saw no problem with it.

This isn't me advocating for the Great Wheel, or the Blood War, or anything. It's just me saying that even with it, it worked in my game. I guess I find the whole discussion a little weird. As always, play what you like

I feel pretty much the same. There's even precedent in real world history as an example of why:

Between 1792 and 1815, Britain and France (together with most other nations of Europe, in various configurations) were sporadically at war with one another - a series of wars known to us these days as the "Napoleonic Wars". Any yet, throughout this time, many of the boots worn by the French army were made in my erstwhile home town of Northampton (England). Warfare is all very well, but business is business!