NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="coyote6" data-source="post: 413005" data-attributes="member: 1225">I hate it when that happens. Usually, I just let it go, 'cause like the man said, hey, silly discussion. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Two responses: 1) If demons are so chaotic and evil that personal Smackdown Ability is the most important attribute of a ranking demon, then the One True Demonic Monarch was perforce powerful enough to smack down every other menace to get his job. So how did a bunch of weaker guys ever manage to take him down? He would just kill everyone anywhere near powerful enough to be a threat (when combined with enough others of similar power). Since demons have that chaotic, evil, utterly untrustable nature (that makes personal Smackdown Ability so necessary), a large conspiracy would be impossible, meaning that the One True Demonic Monarch only needs to kill (and keep killing) a relative few to keep himself firmly in place. So why isn't he still The King?(Of course, without all those balors, celestials or devils will roll in, and eliminate all demons forever, but hey. Them's the breaks.)2) OTOH, if demons can intrigue and conspire with one another to take down the One True Demonic Monarch, then why can't a demon intrigue & manipulate to keep himself as one of the Big Boys? In other words, why can't Graz'zt, prince of deception, pull enough strings to give himself enough political power to rival Orcus & Demogorgon & Ronald McDonald?One final thought: so, Graz'zt used to be just as Personally Badass as Orcus & Demogorgon, and now he's not. So, what changed? How did Graz'zt lose power? Perhaps he never really had that power, and only fooled everyone (esp. one Gygax) into thinking he did. Or perhaps he reached too far, and lost power. Maybe he sought to commit the ultimate betrayal, and cut a deal with Asmodeus (or one of those fabled 66 HD solars!) to betray the whole of the Abyss; instead, he lost his shirt.Perhaps Orcus' return from whatever-it-was that happened to him in 2e precipitated a loss of personal might for Graz'zt. So maybe now the demon of deception is desperately trying to pull the strings and layer the lies to keep himself on top. Andor he's looking to regain his lost strength.Or maybe he hasn't lost power at all, and is only pretending to, to lure his enemies into foolishness (of course, his lies fooled a fellow named Cook, along with the requisite developers, editors, and such).Maybe Graz'zt has found a way to achieve truly divine status, and make various posters happy, but it requires he first lose power before he can make himself God of All Deceptions.[edit]: In other words, make an adventure or 666 out of the discrepancy! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification