Queen of Chaos--get off yer duff!

[pawsplay]

Heh.

I hope that with the changeover from Dragon to the DI WotC still gets James Jacobs to write Demonimicon articles on a freelance basis. I'd love to see the Queen eventually get one and move into a possibly more active role for a change.

I hate that "evolving game setting" stuff. One of my complaints about Tyrants is that with all the upheaval and whatnot, it's hard to imagine the lords of hell as having ruled for aeons. "Everything has been the same for six hundred years, and then it all changed a few years ago" has started to become something of a cliche, for all its value in setting up dramatic potential. To me, devil lords don't have dramatic potential. They were here before you came and will be there after you're gone.

If the Queen of Chaos did decide it was time to make her move, and physically appeared, the resulting fight and aftermath would completely dominate the landscape, to the extent that going after some yokel with the Hand and Eye of Vecna would be a petty distraction. If you weren't a powerful outsider or a super epic character, you really wouldn't matter.

Lord of the Rings is about Sauron on the move. If the Queen of Chaos were on the move, your D&D game wouldn't be a game in which the Queen of Chaos was on the move, it would be the game OF her making her move. Your campaign world would be the struggles that resulted from the instability in the power structure.

Plus, she's probably uselessly insane from having spent too much time in the primordial chaos. If you read the origin story, it says that the demons were forced down into the layers. Even demons find the primordial chaos inimical to their existence. They are in symbiosis with the Abyss, they are not of it, not really.

 

[Shemeska]

The plotline of Ro7P notwithstanding...

I would suggest that her absence from Abyssal politics might have something to do with other, rival lords making sure that her absence is long, or potentially permanent. Pale Night, Dagon, Pazuzu, Obox-Ob... they all have a vested interest in keeping her dormant or comatose. She might be trapped on her layer of the Abyss, trapped in a delusional mental prison of sorts, or simply so weakened that she lacks the ability to manifest an avatar outside of that layer itself.

Hell, her little stunt on the inner planes which led to the eladrin almost culling her race from the Abyss might have even garnered her some unwanted attention from her own makers, drawing them out of their mad isolation long enough to trap her in that layer of the Abyss, allowing some other obyrith lord like Pale Night, etc to gain in prestige in her absence.

 

[Ry]

Re: Shemeska's point, there's few rules more universal than "Don't screw around with Pale Night."

 

[Mycanid]

Re: Shemeska's point, there's few rules more universal than "Don't screw around with Pale Night."

btw rycanada - nice to see you are able to get through and post again.

 

[Doug McCrae]

"Everything has been the same for six hundred years, and then it all changed a few years ago" has started to become something of a cliche, for all its value in setting up dramatic potential.

Yep, that's a roleplaying universe. Also remember to add the long dead civilisation with advanced magic.

 

[DM_Jeff]

Get off yer duff and start threatening the multiverse again!

Isn't she actually hibernating in Germany after the embarrassment of trying to force the Buck Rogers license on unsuspecting gamers everywhere?

-DM Jeff

 

[Ry]

btw rycanada - nice to see you are able to get through and post again.

(only works from work, and I'd better go before my boss makes me save vs. work the weekend)

 

[Desdichado]

The plotline of Ro7P notwithstanding...

I'm actually not familiar with it. Care to give a quick executive summary?

I would suggest that her absence from Abyssal politics might have something to do with other, rival lords making sure that her absence is long, or potentially permanent. Pale Night, Dagon, Pazuzu, Obox-Ob... they all have a vested interest in keeping her dormant or comatose. She might be trapped on her layer of the Abyss, trapped in a delusional mental prison of sorts, or simply so weakened that she lacks the ability to manifest an avatar outside of that layer itself.

Which is cool already. I love the idea of making the PC's team up with unlikely allies--good PC's teaming up with some demon lords against another one to maintain the status quo certainly qualifies.

Hell, her little stunt on the inner planes which led to the eladrin almost culling her race from the Abyss might have even garnered her some unwanted attention from her own makers, drawing them out of their mad isolation long enough to trap her in that layer of the Abyss, allowing some other obyrith lord like Pale Night, etc to gain in prestige in her absence.

Bah. Humbug. I don't buy into that yugoloth propoganda. I kinda like how there's this one passage in FC1 that addresses the whole fiendish creation story with a common origin by the baernoloths and dismisses it out of hand in the same breath.

If the Queen of Chaos did decide it was time to make her move, and physically appeared, the resulting fight and aftermath would completely dominate the landscape, to the extent that going after some yokel with the Hand and Eye of Vecna would be a petty distraction. If you weren't a powerful outsider or a super epic character, you really wouldn't matter.

Lord of the Rings is about Sauron on the move. If the Queen of Chaos were on the move, your D&D game wouldn't be a game in which the Queen of Chaos was on the move, it would be the game OF her making her move. Your campaign world would be the struggles that resulted from the instability in the power structure.

Well, yeah--exactly. If that were to happen, what kind of campaign would that look like? What are some things that could be done if I wanted to craft a level 1-20 adventure path around exactly that premise I wonder? That's kinda really where I'm getting with this.

 

[Atavar]

I'm actually not familiar with it. Care to give a quick executive summary?

Here you go:

[sblock]
Queen of Chaos's forces invade a prime world, on which resides the scattered pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts, hoping to use it to bring Miska back to full power and enable him to escape his Pandemonium Prison through an existing small breach in the prison. Heroes quest to recover the pieces of the Rod first and keep them out of her hands (tentacles?). With fully-assembled Rod, heroes travel to the Pendemonium Prison of Miska to try to slay him or seal the small breach in his prison, thus preventing another Chaos War. Heroes touch the Rod to Miska, putting his chaos that was tainting the Rod back into Miska and fully empowering him; then they stab him with the purified Rod (re-creating the event from the Battle of Pesh). If the Rod fails its saving throw (quite likely, as it did at Pesh), it scatters, Miska survives (but is re-weakened), and the breach to his prison is sealed. If the Rod makes its saving throw, Miska is destroyed. Either outcome can stop the War from starting again. Miska's death essentailly means a true victory for the Vaati.
[/sblock]

Later,

Atavar

 

[Desdichado]

Hey, here's another quick question. At what point do the Wind Dukes and the Vaati get combined? Aren't the Vaati a completely different race from the original Oriental Adventures who just happen to have a place called Aqaa in their stable? Are they really the same thing, or is that kinda a false correllation? Where is it stated categorically that they are the same?

I presume Ro7P is a 2e mega-adventure?