Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8408459" data-attributes="member: 42582">What edition are you referring to?In AD&D, the MM (p 20) says that Asmodeus is "the Overlord of all the dukes of Hell [who] rules by both might and wit. . . .His mighty palace rests upon the floor of the lowest rift in Hell's ninth plane." The PHB (p 120) says that the Nine Hells is one of the "the Outer Planes which are the homes of powerful beings, the source of alignment (religious/ philosophical/ ethical ideals), the deities." Sahuagin are devil-worshippers with clerics, which tends to imply that Asmodeus has clerics and grants spells and is functionally a god; the Sahuagin entry also mentions the possibility that they were created by a lawful-evil god but doesn't identify who that may have been.The MM has little to say about gods as such. Water elementals are rumoured to have a god-like king on their plane. A "demented godling" may have created catoblepas. Tritons worship the god Triton (does this make the Greek Gods "core"?). The Wand of Orcus kills "any creature, save those of like status (other princes or devils, saints, godlings, etc.) merely by touching their flesh" (p 18). This certainly implies that "archfiends" are on a par with saints and godlings. Neither of those is a defined term.Saints appear also in the DMG, as possible sources of components for the manufacture of healing potions. They do not appear in the PHB. Most of the PHB's discussion of gods/deities is in relation to clerics, each of whom "is dedicated to a deity, or deities" (p 20). The discussion of how deities grant spells etc doesn't tell us who they are, or whether or not Asmodeus et al are among them: after all, we are also told both that druids "hold trees (particularly oak and ash), the sun, and the moon as deities" (p 221) and that "Clerical spells, including the druidic, are bestowed by the gods" (p 40). So the concept of deity seems pretty capacious!Other mentions of gods, godlings and deities in the PHB tend to put archfiends on a par. Here are the examples I found:The Gate spell (p 53) may summon a "demon, devil, demi-god, god, or similar being". The caster of a Shapechange spell (p 93) "is able to assume the form of any creature short of a demi-god, greater devil, demon prince, singular dragon type, greater demon or the like." Turning Undead (p 104) can also affect "lesser demons, devils, godlings and paladins". In astral planar combat (p 120), "Only very powerful creatures (demon princes, arch devils, godlings, gods, etc.) can do more than destroy the astral body".The claim that no one using the core AD&D books would imagine that there are clerics of Asmodeus, Orcus etc; or that no one using those books would treat the archfiends as analogous to, or as, evil gods, is completely implausible in my view. If they read the entry on Sahuagin, then they will in fact think the opposite!And this is driven home further by the fact that it was so common to have clerics of devils and demons (as is seen in T1 Village of Hommlet, for instance). I can't imagine any AD&D player or referee who came across the clerics of Zuggtmoy in T1-4 woud have had their mind blown!To the best of my knowledge Kossuth (and the like beings of the other elements) was first mentioned in MotP, building on the allusions in the elemental entries in the AD&D MM. (Eg, p 38, "The rule of all fire elementals is reported to be known as the tyrant.")On p 40 of the MotP we are told the following:The tyrant-king of all elementals is known by many names, all of which sound like the rush of super-heated air from a foundry or the crackle of lesser matter being immolated . . . Kossuth is quick to judge, and his judgments always revolve about what is best for his dominion in general and himself in particular. . . . Kossuth is a Greater Power, the primal power behind all flame, and as such is unslayable in his home plane and has all the abilities afforded a Greater Power in Appendix IV . . .Does Kossuth have clerics? Worshippers? From that entry, we can't tell. He is certainly less interesting as a character than Imix is! To the best of my knowledge, the working up of Kossuth as a god in the more typical sense is a 2nd ed/FR thing. That impression is reinforced by this webpage: <a href="https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Canon:Kossuth" target="_blank">Canon:Kossuth - Dungeons and Dragons Wiki</a></blockquote>

Verification