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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8412709" data-attributes="member: 6801228">No. Where would you even get this idea to accuse me of it? Where did I ever say that the commonality or rarity of a story mattered in any way, shape or form?Which isn't different from Evil Gods in most settings. You don't see Gruumshite's at the local bake sale after all.She is very much not a god, and she absolutely does not require worship to survive. Also, Lolth's publication history is very different than her narrative history. But I do want to break down your last sentence a little bit. Seperate goals... That's a weird one to claim, because many of the Evil Gods do have vastly different goals... and those goals are in a macroscale are not that vastly different from the goals of Archfiends. They either want to control or destroy all life. And narratively, that is the fact that matters. Whether it is a demon or a god doesn't matter as much as the fact that Entity X wants to drown the world, wipe out anything that can't breathe underwater, and enslave the remains.Sure it can be any of those. I've never had a player or a warlock sign a fiendish contract on a crossroad on a moonless night, never realized that was a strict requirement that all soul contracts had to abide by. Maybe they sign in blood, maybe with a golden pen, maybe with ink mixed with the tears of a widower. You seem to think that the details of how you sign the contract are the important part.Yes, and? Maybe the god doesn't think he will get caught. Maybe he is confident that those goody-two-shoes won't try it. Maybe he is paranoid enough that he put in precautions against this type of subversion. Just because it has a chance to backfire doesn't mean a god won't do it. See any story of Gods fighting each other. Heck, look at myths about Loki, the guy was constantly writing checks he couldn't cash and nearly got beheaded for it at least once.None of this is inherently true. First of all, there is no reason to believe that Fiends don't care about worshipers. Worshipers are agents they can utilize and souls they will gain, there is all the reason to care about them. Secondly, a forced conversion can absolutely get you a soul. Pledging your soul to a Demon Lord and being branded by their power is a sure fire way to get a one-way trip. Additionally, while murder doesn't get them souls... most fiends also tend to like murder. They can have multiple goals and multiple plans. And finally, gods don't neccessarily die without worship. Yes, that is a common story in DnD because we like it, but it also is a story that didn't always be the case and sometimes doesn't work for what you want. For example, in Eberron if the Dark Six are even real, they are certainly not less powerful than the Soveriegns who are far more commonly worshiped.Do you think if I beat my face against a wall hard enough you will start listening to me? I have was not advocating for not needing both. I never advocating for removing either from anything more than my home game. But you know what? If you can tell a story with giants or with dragons... then, no, you don't need both dragons and giants in that story. They can both still be in the toolbox, ready to pull out if you need them, but putting both of them in a story that only calls for one or the other risks the story becoming muddled.They could be, they aren't a concept that easily translates into a western understanding. of course, there were many times in Western myth that Fey were considered demons too. Take Rumplestiltskin after all.You didn't come up with the world, no, but you said something that inspired the idea.Being something you consider doesn't make it not a story you can tell. And the benefits would be whatever the setting and the author decided they would be. Also, gods can truly be destroyed by whatever the setting says can destroy them. Thor was killed by poison. Baldur by a dart through the heart. You can say that in your world gods can only be destroyed by losing all of their worshipers, but that doesn't make it universally true for all of DnD. In fact, as mentioned, that was added to the game at a later date. And still isn't necessarily true in all settings. Point in Fact, look at Theros. The Gods there are Nyx-born, they won't die if people stop worshipping them, they will die if people forget about them.But you can control literally everything else. And I don't need the Main Character of the novel to act a certain way to world-build something. But to the other points, you are making a distinction that does not matter. How big the war is wasn't a point of comparison. Just that it happens "out there" and also in the Prime. For a group playing just in the prime, caught between a religious war the only difference is that the Fiends are likely far scarier since they tend to have higher CR members involved in these battles. And to the coups, I think again you are missing my point because you are assuming my intent. "In DnD it is more likely" doesn't matter. I'm looking solely at "is this a story that can be told either way?" If the answer is yes, then it is yes. That's all I care about in discussing these.Okay, that is true for planescape. Is it literally true for every single possible DnD game? No. Because you can make a cosmology where that isn't true.headdeskI literally clarify three, four, five times, and still I run into things like this. And, It's my own fault, because we shifted gears and I only clarified it three or four times instead of a dozen. When discussing things like "the rules say that Archfiends can't make clerics" then I am looking at the rules are written for DnD. This is important because when asking "what is the actual rule differences between these two things" we need to know what the actual rules are. Yes, we can always change these rules, but know what they are to begin with is helpful. When asking "what stories can you tell with these beings" then we have to move beyond the rules. Because the rules don't cover which stories you are allowed to tell. You can make your own setting that isn't covered by the rules. You can use different versions of the setting, from different points in time. So, yes, I'm homebrewing. Because cosmology isn't set in unbreakable stone. So, there is nothing preventing me from having an Archfiend have the same story of one of their worshippers merging into their plane of existence. Especially since many of those planes are identical to places where Evil Gods are said to reside.I never said it was canon. I thought the shift in the conversation was obvious. If I had known you were posting "what stories have already been told in DnD" then I would have approached this differently than I did. But also, yes, that is the entire point of human sacrifice to a dark god, to have the magic of the ritual send their soul to that entity.Who says that the power of Asmodeus doesn't leave you with better standards or living and a chance for promotion? Not all of Asmodeus's people on the prime are slaves, they are extensions of his will, acting out his plans. Again, there is zero daylight here, these are identical concepts.Also, using servant in the terms of "one who serves", not in any derogatory manner. And they do serve their higher power.  This is fine for Planescape. Doesn't mean it is universal. However, it is also 100% agreeing with me. Rutterkin in DnD 5e are fiends, and I'm fairly confident that that was true back in 2e as well. Additionally, turning someone into a devil or a demon is a very doable act."At least one side". So, you can have a holy war between good gods and evil Archfiends. This literally describes the conflict between the Hindu Deva's and the Asura. Remember, we've been discussing evil gods. Obviously fiends can't replace good gods, because fiends are evil. But since you can do evil fiends vs good gods, then you can do a holy war with Archfiends filling the role of Evil Gods.I suppose this gets into a question. If a fiend is the source of an evil, let's say undeath, then does killing that fiend reduce or destroy undead? I think that if you set up a cosmology where Orcus was the true and only source of undeath and necromantic magic, then by killing him and removing that core, then things could logically collapse, removing his influence, and thus destroying all undead. I don't see how this doesn't work as a story you could tell.</blockquote>

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