The Dukes of Hell

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Hmm, a huge hell-upheaving event where a few lines of text indicating a few changes and/or corrections (like "IT has since been confirmed that Tiamat is not, in fact, the duke of the 1st layer" or "In the time since sages last recorded the ranks of the hierarchy, Duke X had this happen to him..") Gods what a shame.


Ahh yes. The eternal cross one must bear as a gamer from the 70's who never read Dragon magazine. Eh, I'm used to that.


Possibly, possibly. But the impression that I got from Planewalker.com was that this poor upper planer creature (since WHEN is Baalzebul a fallen upper planer being?!? No, don't answer that...) dropped into the hells, and the devils there turned him into a slug-beast as some kind of cruel welcome to the 'hood joke at his expense. It just robs him of any dignity he could achieve regardless of his power, y'know? What we get is 'Baalzebul, dorky new kid in school who got pantsed in from of the cheerleader squad at homecoming, but has an M-16 in his closet now" kind of thing. The Lord of the Flies used to be a Nasty Mo-Fo.

As for Mammon's girth, it was *part* of his anti-appeal. "Glasya is strongarmed into being consort for HIM?!?!?!??!?!?!?!" He was obese and slovenly and gross in a way that only evil should really be, and yes was still really powerful despite being...well...a fat ugly slob. He was a fat ugly slob who rules a layer of hell with the hottest she-devil around as his woman and the power and authority of a mini-Satan. Rock on, Mammon. Now he's just.. I dunno... lesser. :/

And I still miss Belial and Geryon, but mostly Belial.

I don't know why they changed Mammon into a Geryon form. It doesn't add anything interesting to the setting as far as I can see. Maybe the same thinking behind making Orcus all ripped and shredded in his BOVD/FC1 pictures. After all you can't be huge and grossly fat and be a Demon Prince/Arch Devil can you?

There is some good stuff in the new book on the Hells that WOTC put out, which has most of the PS and 2e changes to Hell, but I find the work done by Greenwood in Dragon #75/76 are still more in line with how I see Hell in the D&D cosmology.

 

[Shemeska]

Possibly, possibly. But the impression that I got from Planewalker.com was that this poor upper planer creature (since WHEN is Baalzebul a fallen upper planer being?!? No, don't answer that...) dropped into the hells, and the devils there turned him into a slug-beast as some kind of cruel welcome to the 'hood joke at his expense. It just robs him of any dignity he could achieve regardless of his power, y'know?

He still is a "nasty mo-fo", probably the one member of his ilk that I'd want least to have to deal with. He was originally an archon named Triel, and his fall from LG to LE saw him not in Baator as a punishment, but because he willingly joined the ranks of the Baatezu. It's somewhat muddled as to if he became a Lord of the 9 quickly, by seizing it from an earlier ruler, or being appointed to the position, or if he was forced to climb the heirarchy of Baator the old fashioned way: being melted down into a lemure and rising in rank from there on up the hard way over millennia, rank by rank. I suspect the latter, but in any event his becoming a fiend wasn't because of the alignment shift, but because of choice on his part and being intentionally turned into one by Asmodeus due to that choice. It makes him a more complex character, and explains much of the flavor behind his layer of Baator and why he acts the way he does.

But beyond that, the slug form wasn't a welcome to the 'hood joke, it wasn't his original form as Lot9. Now it's a question on if his original fly-headed form ala as depicted in 1e was a result of his transition from Mount Celestia to Baator, or a result of elevation to a Lot9, or self-chosen. But he had that form prior to the Reckoning, and the slug form was inflicted as punishment for his actions against Asmodeus during that event.

 

[Ripzerai]

and I so wish I hadn't. I'd love to know whose 'bright idea' this was.

The name "the Reckoning" was coined by Chris Pramas in Guide to Hell, a post-Planescape WotC product. It gave a name to the diabolic insurrection first described by Monte Cook in A Paladin in Hell, which was an old-school homage to 1st edition published in the late '90s (post-Planescape).

But the story is much more involved than that. You see, way back in the early '90s, the traditional demon names used for first edition lords of the netherworld were banned by TSR brass. So when Planescape designer Colin McComb needed to name the rulers of Baator, he came up with an almost entirely different set of characters - the warlord Bel, the disgusting slug Triel, the sadistic fop Molikroth, the riddling snake Minauros, the avenging hag Malagard, the unpredictable beauty Fierana, the manipulative Dispater, the imprisoned Levistus, and the shadowy, unnamed Dark Lord of Nessus.

That was all well and good. They're an interesting, varied set of villains. But people who remembered the first edition archdevils wondered what had happened to them. This began a long process of trying to reconcile the two sets of archfiends. Colin McComb suggested in On Hallowed Ground and Hellbound that the 1st edition archdevils were part of a long line of rulers that were deposed and replaced continually over the eons. Only Dispater remained of those that ancient texts refer to (and then only because Dispater had been mentioned in earlier Planescape products by different authors).

Now, people like Wolv0rine weren't satisfied by this. They really liked the old, iconic rulers that Gary Gygax had set up and didn't like the radically different set, and they complained loudly about it on a relatively new medium called a message board - in this case, the ones TSR had set up on America Online. So Colin McComb tried out a different compromise in Faces of Evil, suggesting that the Planescape Lords of the Nine were only one guise of beings that had many alternate forms and disguises. He suggested that Fierana and Belial (without mentioning the name Belial, which he still wasn't allowed to use) were one and the same - different aspects of the same complex, mysterious entity.

In A Paladin in Hell, Monte Cook tried a completely different tack from either of those approaches. Instead of a series of coups and assassinations over a span of eons, he suggested there had been one cataclysmic rebellion, the cumulation of all the plots and rivalries mentioned in 1st edition materials, set thousands of years before the "present day." This rebellion became the driving force of the adventure's plot, which revolved around Geryon's attempt to regain his throne. Monte Cook preserved as many of the 1st edition rulers as he could via the "alternate aspect" theory, using the unnamed rebellion as an explanation for the transformations.

Every subsequent presentation of those entities has used the A Paladin in Hell backstory as its basis.

As far as the Slug Archduke goes, I like him. He's the Jabba the Hutt of the Hells. Nobody laughs at him - they don't dare, because he has spies everywhere, and his powers are not diminished in any way by his change in form.

Baalzebul's now the one rocking the "disgusting and gross in the way evil should be" appeal that Mammon used to have, except he does it much better. "Out of shape pit fiend" doesn't do it for me, but "maggoty Jabba the Hutt" does. Mammon is sleek and sinister.

In writing the Planewalker encyclopedia entries (I wrote all of them), I did err on the side of the Planescape interpretations of the various figures, while still incorporating new information. The description of Mammon in Guide to Hell is much more old-school - Chris Pramas said that Mammon still takes on his old form when he goes on the hunt, riding a nightmare and accompanied by hell hounds. Mainly because a guy with the lower body of a snake would have difficulty riding a horse.

 

[Wolv0rine]

He still is a "nasty mo-fo", probably the one member of his ilk that I'd want least to have to deal with. He was originally an archon named Triel, and his fall from LG to LE saw him not in Baator as a punishment, but because he willingly joined the ranks of the Baatezu. It's somewhat muddled as to if he became a Lord of the 9 quickly, by seizing it from an earlier ruler, or being appointed to the position, or if he was forced to climb the heirarchy of Baator the old fashioned way: being melted down into a lemure and rising in rank from there on up the hard way over millennia, rank by rank. I suspect the latter, but in any event his becoming a fiend wasn't because of the alignment shift, but because of choice on his part and being intentionally turned into one by Asmodeus due to that choice. It makes him a more complex character, and explains much of the flavor behind his layer of Baator and why he acts the way he does.

But beyond that, the slug form wasn't a welcome to the 'hood joke, it wasn't his original form as Lot9. Now it's a question on if his original fly-headed form ala as depicted in 1e was a result of his transition from Mount Celestia to Baator, or a result of elevation to a Lot9, or self-chosen. But he had that form prior to the Reckoning, and the slug form was inflicted as punishment for his actions against Asmodeus during that event.

Hmm, yeah I can see that. I dunno, though... the initial fly-headed form at least spoke to the "Lord of the Flies" title he had, whereas his current sluggy form really gives a "Ahh, I don't get the title thing" impression. Granted, Asmodeus is THE Authority of the hells, and if he wants to put the humility into you, I guess that's his right (although I always figured the Dukes of Hell were a little bit beyond something as simple as "You screwed the pooch, you get to be a slug now" and would require something a little more sinisterly devious and machevelian, but that's just me).

When it all comes down to it, it's a blatant combination of Gronardism and artistic/aethstic "But... that's not *RIGHT*!" But I can't escape it bugging me.

Again, I appreciate you indulging my indignation, Shem.

And Flexor -- I'm right there with you, man.

 

[Ripzerai]

Hmm, yeah I can see that. I dunno, though... the initial fly-headed form at least spoke to the "Lord of the Flies" title he had, whereas his current sluggy form really gives a "Ahh, I don't get the title thing" impression.

He's still a fly. It's just that now he's in a larval stage - a maggot. Who knows what he'll metamorphose into in the future?

 

[Wolv0rine]

The name "the Reckoning" was coined by Chris Pramas in Guide to Hell, a post-Planescape WotC product. It gave a name to the diabolic insurrection first described by Monte Cook in A Paladin in Hell, which was an old-school homage to 1st edition published in the late '90s (post-Planescape).

But the story is much more involved than that. You see, way back in the early '90s, the traditional demon names used for first edition lords of the netherworld were banned by TSR brass. So when Planescape designer Colin McComb needed to name the rulers of Baator, he came up with an almost entirely different set of characters - the warlord Bel, the disgusting slug Triel, the sadistic fop Molikroth, the riddling snake Minauros, the avenging hag Malagard, the unpredictable beauty Fierana, the manipulative Dispater, the imprisoned Levistus, and the shadowy, unnamed Dark Lord of Nessus.

That was all well and good. They're an interesting, varied set of villains. But people who remembered the first edition archdevils wondered what had happened to them. This began a long process of trying to reconcile the two sets of archfiends. Colin McComb suggested in On Hallowed Ground and Hellbound that the 1st edition archdevils were part of a long line of rulers that were deposed and replaced continually over the eons. Only Dispater remained of those that ancient texts refer to (and then only because Dispater had been mentioned in earlier Planescape products by different authors).

Now, people like Wolv0rine weren't satisfied by this. They really liked the old, iconic rulers that Gary Gygax had set up and didn't like the radically different set, and they complained loudly about it on a relatively new medium called a message board - in this case, the ones TSR had set up on America Online. So Colin McComb tried out a different compromise in Faces of Evil, suggesting that the Planescape Lords of the Nine were only one guise of beings that had many alternate forms and disguises. He suggested that Fierana and Belial (without mentioning the name Belial, which he still wasn't allowed to use) were one and the same - different aspects of the same complex, mysterious entity.

In A Paladin in Hell, Monte Cook tried a completely different tack from either of those approaches. Instead of a series of coups and assassinations over a span of eons, he suggested there had been one cataclysmic rebellion, the cumulation of all the plots and rivalries mentioned in 1st edition materials, set thousands of years before the "present day." This rebellion became the driving force of the adventure's plot, which revolved around Geryon's attempt to regain his throne. Monte Cook preserved as many of the 1st edition rulers as he could via the "alternate aspect" theory, using the unnamed rebellion as an explanation for the transformations.

Every subsequent presentation of those entities has used the A Paladin in Hell backstory as its basis.

As far as the Slug Archduke goes, I like him. He's the Jabba the Hutt of the Hells. Nobody laughs at him - they don't dare, because he has spies everywhere, and his powers are not diminished in any way by his change in form.

Baalzebul's now the one rocking the "disgusting and gross in the way evil should be" appeal that Mammon used to have, except he does it much better. "Out of shape pit fiend" doesn't do it for me, but "maggoty Jabba the Hutt" does. Mammon is sleek and sinister.

In writing the Planewalker encyclopedia entries (I wrote all of them), I did err on the side of the Planescape interpretations of the various figures, while still incorporating new information. The description of Mammon in Guide to Hell is much more old-school - Chris Pramas said that Mammon still takes on his old form when he goes on the hunt, riding a nightmare and accompanied by hell hounds. Mainly because a guy with the lower body of a snake would have difficulty riding a horse.

*nods* I remember the big crap-fest that disallowed the use of "Devil", "Demon", and anything that might allude to the fact that terrible, hateful evil things might actually be like, EVIL. And the rest of your story does at least give some light to those of us (okay, Me) who casually side-steped all the goings-on with those various roducts during that era. At least attempts were made to not throw the Duke out with the bathwater on 1, maybe 1.5 occasions.
And like I said in my last post, there's a strong current of gronardism behind my problems with the whole lot. It's the same vein as the Azbat Batman armor or the Electric-Blue Superman fiasco. When you have good, strong, solid Icons, you're a fool to decide you need to start changing things with a sledgehammer.
As far as the Jabba-the-Hut thing, Geryon would have steped into that naturally enough, he was the right form to begin with. It's a shame, really. The towering, fat, slovenly evil is an iconic form of evil, fairly different from the sluggish Jabba slob evil. I think trading one for the other is a shame, really.
I mean, I can see how it evolved within your synopsis, but gads it's a shame. Next thing you know Wonder Wonam'll be trading in her super-bikini for an Emma Peel-esque 70's outfit. ;P

 

[Wolv0rine]

He's still a fly. It's just that now he's in a larval stage - a maggot. Who knows what he'll metamorphose into in the future?

Now THAT is an interesting take that the Planewalker entry didn't seem to allude to. I got 'slug', not 'maggot' from that.
Although, it's hard to give credence to a maggot being "LORD of the Flies". Funny in a kind of skewed comical way, but... off.

Come to think of it, I think part of my problem with this is the overt and baseball bat-like Metaplot that's emerging the more I read this stuff.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Now THAT is an interesting take that the Planewalker entry didn't seem to allude to. I got 'slug', not 'maggot' from that.
Although, it's hard to give credence to a maggot being "LORD of the Flies". Funny in a kind of skewed comical way, but... off.

Come to think of it, I think part of my problem with this is the overt and baseball bat-like Metaplot that's emerging the more I read this stuff.

I don't know if its metaplot so much as retconning.

 

[Voadam]

A quick note that in addition to the other sources, Amon appears in the Book of Vile Darkness web enhancement. There he has 3e stats and is in exile with Geryon.

After the already noted Book of Fiends and Tome of Horrors there are also FFE's Encyclopedias of Demons and Devils for some third party details on devil nobility, though many do not care for their treatment there. I don't remember offhand though if any of the creature collection devils are unique ones and I don't have the two follow up tome of horrors books to reference their contents.

 

[RainOfSteel]

You know, the 1e material, especially Ed Greenwoods fabulous Dragon Articles (#75/#76 and #91), rocked.

The Planescape stuff was interesting, and my attempts to delve into my copy of A Paladin in Hell generally fail.

However, I like all the varying information.

When my players go to one place for information, they get one set of information. "Geryon, immensely strong in his half-man/half-snake form, is ruler of the 5th."

When my players go to another place for information, "Levistus is ruler of the 5th, always has been. What? Geryon, you say? Just another upstart, of no import. Pay no attention to anything you hear about him."

What will be when they get there, that's yet another story, matching no official information so no matter what anyone has read, it won't be right.

Should they come back a second time, it may not be the same again. Of course, what really happens is that they didn't understand what happened the first time.

Devils, and their realms, are somewhat tricksome.