The number of Demon Lords and Gods

[Bartmanhomer]

How many demon lords and gods are there?

 

[Imret]

Errrrm....define.

IRL? Too controversial.

Just in Greyhawk? FR? All official campaign settings? All published campaign settings? Counting only those named, or including hypothetical demon lords never described?

Consider that the Abyss is infinite, and even if "most" layers are uncontrolled, there are still an infinite number of layers that are controlled by demon lords.

 

[Bartmanhomer]

Errrrm....define.

IRL? Too controversial.

Just in Greyhawk? FR? All official campaign settings? All published campaign settings? Counting only those named, or including hypothetical demon lords never described?

Consider that the Abyss is infinite, and even if "most" layers are uncontrolled, there are still an infinite number of layers that are controlled by demon lords.

All of them!

 

[BOZ]

i don't think a specific number has ever been defined. there are only as many as we know about, plus those yet undiscovered.

 

[Nightfall]

So many your brain will implode out your nose and back up your skull!

 

[Bartmanhomer]

I think I just figure it out.................

 

[Bartmanhomer]

I also have a question, why does demon gods have a low divine rank?

 

[Ripzerai]

So that player characters can kill them. In previous editions they were more like DvR 6-10, but this time around they realized that having your high-level paladin travel to the Abyss and kill Orcus was totally awesome, and this should be expedited as much as possible.

Giving them enough power to reasonably control their own planes was not thought to be a priority.

 

[Erik Mona]

Just you wait.

--Erik

 

[Zappo]

The Abyss being infinite doesn't mean that there are infinite archdemons. It could be that only a finite number of layers are ruled by an archdemon.

IMC, I don't use D&DG (gods are unstatted). Arch-planar creatures (Archdemons, Lords of the Nine, Secundi, Slaad Lords, Five Companions, Lords of the Stars, Animal Lords, whatever) are not divine, though they have enough CR to put killability in a straight fight out of the question even for high epic PCs, and enough social/political influence and minions to make deities not want to mess with them without need.