D&D General Savage Tide and the Demon King!

[dave2008]

I was reading over Demogorgon's Demonomicon of Iggwilv entry in Dragon issue #357 and it mentioned that the point of the Savage Tide was to combine Demogorgon's two personalities and ascend the Sibilant Beast to the King of Demons!

That got me thinking: did they discuss the possibility of Demogorgon's success in Savage Tide and provide stats or a template for the Demon King? I quick check in issue #150 of Dungeon, confirms, sadly, they did not. So I have two questions:

1. Why don't big world shaking adventures ever really cover what happens if the PCs fail? I realize some adventures briefly cover the subject in a paragraph or two, but do any go into a deep dive into what happens if: the Savage Tide is released, Tiamat manifest in Faerun, or the Demon Lords escape the Abyss, etc. & etc.?
2. As anyone made stats for Demogorgon the Demon King?! I think I might just have to give it a try.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not that I can remember. From memory a PC can replace Demogorgon.

 

[neogod22]

Because these would be world ending events. If the enemies win, then the game is over. BTW, the demonlords are not trapped in the Abyss, they just cant freely come to the Prime Material Plane. They can go anywhere else. Read MToF section about demons and what happens when they come to the Prime. Basically by the time a Demonlord steps foot on the Prime, that world is about to become sucked into they Abyss and create a new Plane.

If (or maybe when) the demons win the Blood War, they will spread across all realms and destroy everything. Then the most powerful of them will insert themselves into the next universe. This is what the Oberyth did. Destroyed their universe, then created the Shard of Ultimate Evil to come into the D&D Universe. Which is what created the Abyss as it burrowed its way through the Elemental Chaos.

 

[Salthorae]

I mean... it depends on the adventure module. I've seen most of the more modern adventures from Paizo and WotC have sections that discuss what happens if the PC's fail.

I think it's just because it was in Dungeon magazine and they had such limited space to work with in there.

Also what @neogod22 said!

 

[the Jester]

Because these would be world ending events. If the enemies win, then the game is over.

Bah, I say, bah!

You can always play the next campaign as a desperate attempt to fix what went wrong before. "This group is trying to correct the mistakes of the last group you played" is a classic campaign idea, and it really ratchets up the players' emotional ties to the game.

For a great fictional example of "the bad guys won a world-changing victory, now what??", read the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

 

[Seramus]

The devils were right all along. Fighting the Blood War means they truly are the greatest force of good in the universe.

 

[neogod22]

Bah, I say, bah!

You can always play the next campaign as a desperate attempt to fix what went wrong before. "This group is trying to correct the mistakes of the last group you played" is a classic campaign idea, and it really ratchets up the players' emotional ties to the game.

For a great fictional example of "the bad guys won a world-changing victory, now what??", read the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

That works for conventional villains, like Villain A took over a town. Not Tiamat manifesting into the world, or Demogorgan pulling the world into the Abyss and making it his 3rd layer. Sure it may take years to wipe all life off the planet, but these events will be a desperate fight into futility. This is the problem with high level campaigns. If the heroes die, there is no one strong enough to correct their failure, and the consequences are irreversible. Low tier, failure changes the shape of the local area, mid tier may change the shape of a kingdom or region. High tier are a world crisis.

Take the new Baldur's Gate campaign for example. What hangs in the balance for the players, is the fate of 1 city. They can continue on and determine the fate of Avernus also, but for that to happen, they will have to adventure past where the game actually wants you to end.

 

[neogod22]

The devils were right all along. Fighting the Blood War means they truly are the greatest force of good in the universe.

They weren't devils when they started.

 

[Hussar]

Well, if Demogorgon succeeded, presuming you used the base Greyhawk setting, then the ritual would pretty much turn most of the Flanaess into a crater. More or less.

Which kinda answers the question of why they don't write out what happens if the bad guys win. Imagine the screams of anger if Greyhawk (or the Sword Coast) being turned into a crater became part of game canon. Good grief, all you have to do is look at the massive beard pulling and hand wringing over the Spell Plague, and that wasn't even half as devastating as what would happen if Demogorgon won, or (from Hoard of the Dragon Queen) Tiamat manifested in the Sword Coast.

Personally, I'd love it, just to see the setting SME's lose their collective minds when Waterdeep gets turned into a smoking ruin.

But, my personal giggles aside, WotC would never be so suicidally stupid to do something like that.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Imagine the screams of anger if Greyhawk (or the Sword Coast) being turned into a crater became part of game canon.

Why would it be canon? Canon assumes that the PCs won. The guidance on what happens if the PC loses - and what the OP is looking for - is just that, guidance.