The 'Wonderland'-Inspired Faces of the RAGE OF DEMONS

Take a peek at some of the art from D&D's upcoming Rage of Demons storyline. This art is by Richard Whitters, who is the art director for D&D and used to work as a concept artist for Magic: the Gathering. WotC's Chris Perkins has indicated that one of the influences on Rage of Demons was Alice in Wonderland, and I think the influence is clear when you look at the characters below.



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OUGALOP, kuo-toa cave cricket catcher extraordinaire.

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YUK YUK and SPIDERBAIT, goblin adrenaline junkies.

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THE SOCIETY OF BRILLIANCE, the Mensa of the Underdark.

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GLABBAGOOL, awakened gelatinous cube.

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RUMPADUMP and STOOL, myconid followers.

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PRINCE DERENDIL, a quaggoth who thinks he's elven royalty.

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TOPSY and TURVY, svirfneblin wererat siblings.

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THE PUDDING KING, svirfneblin devotee (i.e., flunky) of Juiblex the Faceless Lord.

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D&D's "Legion of Doom." What a wonderful bunch of malcontents.
 

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I think that's because, in this hypothetical scenario, the force of "evil" continues to exist. That is, in in the absence of Force of Good, the triumphant Force of Evil pushes psychopaths to burn down orphanages, etc. and drives regular folk into turncoats or apathy and despair.

Basically. PS starts with the conceit that good exists because people believe it exists and if a villain (or PC perhaps!) started changing that belief, you might have a scene in, say, Arcadia, where this iconoclast convinces the people of Mount Clangeddin that there is no such thing as "good", there is only this phenomena of "peace" and that comes out of "order" and then the dwarves, convinced due to the creature's actions, spread out over the planes to help convert others, and maybe Silverbeard goes to talk to the other dwarven deities about this remarkable individual with these interesting ideas and through some other effort the entire dwarven pantheon is convinced and now things start rolling because every dwarf on every world slowly starts to agree that LG is an illusion of ego and there is only truly Law, and influence spreads...and on and on. As this influence grows, layers and planes start becoming part of other places - Mount Clangeddin becomes a gear on Mechanus and soon the dwarven heavens join it and dwarf-bots suffuse the planes and the Slaad become nervous and the story goes on and the assuming it's the antagonist doing this the climax sees the party in the plane of Elysium as Law and Chaos try to claim dibs on it and the guardinals are fighting a civil war and they must convince the Last Good Soul (perhaps the spirit of a child) to somehow remind everyone that there is more than Law and Chaos and Evil, and either they succeed and Good gets (gradually) restored or they fail and there are no upper planes.

...but of course there are still people helping little old ladies across the street, probably, the consensus just views this as their duty to the social order, rather than as "good."

And that's just one interpretation - other groups would probably have their own.

What if the question was: if the forces called "good" and "evil" (and "neutrality") ceased to exist, what would actually change?

Couldn't the outer planes and angels and demons continue to exist, founded on individual virtues and sins and beliefs that continue to persevere in the hearts and minds of the immortals and mortals? If people still cherish their values, must the outer planes come crashing down in this new secular world?

Based on the PS idea of the planes being made of this belief-mana, the obvious question would be: what do people believe in when they don't believe in the alignments? I could see a story based on the idea of the outer planes collapsing entirely (perhaps motivated by empiricist-Sensates in league with elementals - believe in nothing beyond facts!), or one simply based on them transforming dramatically (what does the consensus believe in now? does a monotheism perhaps change the consensus to believing in a dualistic multiverse? is good/evil less relevant than death/life or honor/dishonor? what changes?), but the end result wouldn't be the Great Wheel, and those that are at risk of being believed out of existence would certainly fight against that! Whether those are your allies or your enemies would probably depend upon which side of the iconoclasm the party is on.

Again, the interpretation would vary between tables. PS sort of wants you to figure this out for yourselves. :)
 

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Dungeons & Dragons *is* "four-color" adventure; trying to make it something else results in metaphysical absurdity when discussing a cosmology designed to generate monsters to kill with swords.
 

I want to be sure I understand the stance of the schools of thought here.

The school that says: "alignment of good and evil is Euclidean" in they never cross or converge

whereas the school that says good and evil are not so Euclidean and the parallel lines are curved elliptical or hyperbolic

in that either they cross paths every now and then such that sometimes to do good, one must do what seems evil or if one wants to be evil one must act good every now and them?

I know You really shouldn't mix math and theology, but I could not come up with an appropriate parallel.
 



I want to be sure I understand the stance of the schools of thought here.



The school that says: "alignment of good and evil is Euclidean" in they never cross or converge



whereas the school that says good and evil are not so Euclidean and the parallel lines are curved elliptical or hyperbolic



in that either they cross paths every now and then such that sometimes to do good, one must do what seems evil or if one wants to be evil one must act good every now and them?



I know You really shouldn't mix math and theology, but I could not come up with an appropriate parallel.


The geometry analogy is insufficient: the schools are (broadly):

-Alignment is like math, so what is good is like 2+ 2 = 4 (the position of most all published D&D books)

-Alignment is like literature, highly subjective.
 


Dungeons & Dragons *is* "four-color" adventure; trying to make it something else results in metaphysical absurdity when discussing a cosmology designed to generate monsters to kill with swords.

I take great exception to that.

You can also kill monsters with axes, fireballs, daggers, trees, fists, harsh language, arrows, and all sorts of other implements.
 

The geometry analogy is insufficient: the schools are (broadly):

-Alignment is like math, so what is good is like 2+ 2 = 4 (the position of most all published D&D books)
Except for the actual core books of certain editions...

Alignment in 3.x "Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent."

Alignment in 5e "A typical creature in the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons has an alignment which broadly describes it's moral and personal attitudes... These brief summaries of the nine alignments describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment."


So tell me again how alignment is always as objective as 2+2= 4...
 

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