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.

OUGALOP, kuo-toa cave cricket catcher extraordinaire.

YUK YUK and SPIDERBAIT, goblin adrenaline junkies.

THE SOCIETY OF BRILLIANCE, the Mensa of the Underdark.

GLABBAGOOL, awakened gelatinous cube.

RUMPADUMP and STOOL, myconid followers.

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

TOPSY and TURVY, svirfneblin wererat siblings.

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

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

Evil people care nothing for the wellbeing of others. They certainly care about their own wellbeing, though! They care about it so much that they are prepared to do anything to achieve it, even if that means running roughshod over the wellbeing of others.

Some... but we aren't talking about just "people" when it comes to the D&D worlds... as an example,in the 4e cosmology demons don't care about the well being of anything and wish to destroy everything... including themselves.

In that case, there is no interesting conflict between LG and CG, and in fact NG has turned out to be the correct account of how to maximise wellbeing!

Wait what? The interesting conflicct is in determining, through play, whose beliefs (if any) are correct (in the sense that they set the paradigm for the multiverse). I also fail to see how having not proven that LG or CG is the "correct" belief automatically defaults to NG is the correct belief... none are until it is proven/decided.

But this doesn't entail that the outer planes manifest the truth of their alignments. For instance, this tells us that people in Olympus believe that the path to good is freedom. It doesn't tell us that they are correct.

Exactly the point of Planescape play is to determine whose belefs are correct (in the way I outlined above)... if it was already decided there would be no point to playing.

I don't know what Gygax pesonally believed about these matters in play, but his framework as he writes it, it is possible to have a game in which a paladin goes to Olympus and explains to Zeus that in fact the lack of social order in Olympus is making everyone miserable (eg they keep getting into pointless arguments because there are no rules to settle when it is or isn't OK for Zeus to sleep with cows, for queens to compare their beauty and skill to the various godesses, etc). And for Zeus to then say, "Yep, you're right, we were wrong all along. Please help us right a sensible set of social rules that we can implement."

In the campaign, the paladin (and his/her players) would have vindicated the truth of LG by showing the Olympians that social order actually makes life better. (It would be roughly the opposite of the campaign I described upthread, where the PCs had to depart from the rules laid down by heaven in order to bring an end to human misery. In Gygaxian terms, that was a campaign in which CG (or perhaps NG) was shown to be true and strict LG false.)

And IMO this is perfectly in line with Planescape and what I, (and I believe @Kamikaze Midget and others) have been stating all along. But let's be clear... this scenario only proves, once Zeus and enough of the gods concedes, that LG is now correct for Olympus... not that LG is an objectively correct choice for anywhere else...

It is also possible that a member of the Free League later comes along beats said paladin in a trial by combat, using dirty tricks and breaking the rules, and then convinces Zeus and the other gods that Olympus has been diminished and shackled by accepting the paladins laws and that only by throwing off these pointless bureaucratic chains, and even the hierarchy of the pantheon itself can Olympus rise to it's true potential... if they accept his beliefs, CG could now be the correct choice on Olympus... and so on.

 

[I'm A Banana]

To me consensus alignment makes no sense. I mean heck, you gave an example where the beliefs of a group shifts a part of one realm into another. But that's not consensus alignment. They were wrong. If they were right then why did they get booted to another plane? If they were right, shouldn't they have been able to stay?

They were wrong only because the consensus judged them wrong (they didn't convince enough people that they were doing things that should be called "good"). If they want to go back, they have to convince more people to believe that what they are doing isn't any different than what the angels are doing and maybe should be called good, too.

You can't have objective consensus. To me alignment is objective. It doesn't work if it's not. I loathed the old 2e take on alignment that tried to be relative but never actually did it.

For me, Planescape pretty much hit everything wrong with 2e. Playing without Hobbits? That's easy. But tring to have a game about morality where the game itself predefined that morality is pointless.

I think the thing is that Planescape's take on alignments got rid of predefined morality, without getting rid of alignments as magical forces. An angel striking you down with the divine power of pure goodness was striking you down with the power of all the uncountable zillions of people who believe that anges weild the power of pure goodness, rather than just "goodness."

For me, it's as easy to play D&D without objective alignments as it is to play D&D without bearded dwarves or whatever - it's just another setting-dependent thing I can change as I see fit.

....but out of curiosity, would you play a Planescape game that just didn't have alignments? Kept the heavens, the hells, even the "map" (as unreal as that map is), but nothing to write on your character sheet, no detect spells, no magical talismans of good/evil, etc.?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It simply refers to a game-construct that governs the operation of a relatively small handful of magical effects that are in the game as legacy consequences of a different conception of alignment.

I don't see the point.

Suppose that (for whatever reason) a majority of the NPCs in PS decide that Demogorogn is "good" and Bahamut "evil", and so the polarity of all those magical effects is reversed. But Bahamut is still noble and generous, and Demogorgon still a vicious brute. Why would that be important?

I don't use the PS model of alignment, but nevertheless will comment:

It's not "important" unless the players make it important. It's just part of gameworld physics, like binary gravity. For me, that's why I usually ignore alignment unless alignment-related effects come into play (sentient weapons, etc.).

To use your terminology, alignment in my games is not epiphenomenal, but in practice it is pretty close to it. Occasionally players ask what alignment their actions are and I render a verdict, but that happens at a metagame level.

 

[Parmandur]

....but out of curiosity, would you play a Planescape game that just didn't have alignments? Kept the heavens, the hells, even the "map" (as unreal as that map is), but nothing to write on your character sheet, no detect spells, no magical talismans of good/evil, etc.?

Not to speak for [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] but this actually summarizes the way I feel about it precisely. Those D&D-isms are there pretty much to eliminate moral questions like "should we kill the Orc baby?" if I recall what Gygax said about the matter correctly (not in the rules, but a latter gloss). In order to make these issues really open, those would be best removed to make the questions more and grey than black and white.

 

[steeldragons]

Wow. So those demons are pretty sweet, huh?

What might be kind of Wonderland (and frankly kinda cool) if the whole thing is a myconid/or evil Zuggtmoy controlled mushroom/spore hallucination.

Yeenoghu is the Mad Hatter throwing a tea party (but is really just some derro nut), Fraz and Juiblex in the March Hare and Door Mouse roles (c'mon Juiblex popping a gooey "head"/eye out of a tea pot and unable to stay awake? That's some adventure gold right there). Grazzt, obviously, is the quaggoth that thinks he's elfin royalty and in the role of the Jack, with Orcus is in the Queen of Hearts role - but simply, beneath the illusion/hallucination the mind flayer. A disappearing Baphomet lounging about on tree branches reciting Cheshire Cat rhymes and riddles. Demongorgon is Tweedles Dee & Dum, arguing with each other, who, beneath the illusion are those two goblins with the silly names.

So, actually, there is no invasion of the abyssal lords. Just a bad magical (illusion) mushroom trip...while Zuggtmoy is trying to getaway with some scheme.

 

[Fralex]

Wow. So those demons are pretty sweet, huh?

What might be kind of Wonderland (and frankly kinda cool) if the whole thing is a myconid/or evil Zuggtmoy controlled mushroom/spore hallucination.

Yeenoghu is the Mad Hatter throwing a tea party (but is really just some derro nut), Fraz and Juiblex in the March Hare and Door Mouse roles (c'mon Juiblex popping a gooey "head"/eye out of a tea pot and unable to stay awake? That's some adventure gold right there). Grazzt, obviously, is the quaggoth that thinks he's elfin royalty and in the role of the Jack, with Orcus is in the Queen of Hearts role - but simply, beneath the illusion/hallucination the mind flayer. A disappearing Baphomet lounging about on tree branches reciting Cheshire Cat rhymes and riddles. Demongorgon is Tweedles Dee & Dum, arguing with each other, who, beneath the illusion are those two goblins with the silly names.

So, actually, there is no invasion of the abyssal lords. Just a bad magical (illusion) mushroom trip...while Zuggtmoy is trying to getaway with some scheme.

Yeah, but make it really ambiguous whether this is all real or not. Oh, and if the characters previously played in another adventure, have several of the weird NPCs be suspiciously similar to NPCs from the surface world!

 

[steeldragons]

Yeah, but make it really ambiguous whether this is all real or not. Oh, and if the characters previously played in another adventure, have several of the weird NPCs be suspiciously similar to NPCs from the surface world!

Totally. Like, here's your Wonderland...but through Abyss-colored glasses...Make the party say, "But I thought we were supposed to be in the underdark? What's with this red cloudy sky and sulfur-scented shortbreads that say "Eat me"? Oh! There's a drow in a waistcoat...he's going to the underdark for sure! We follow him into that hole..."

DM: You come out into a cavern of natural columns. DERRO AMBUSH! [combat combat] Round one's finished. You notice the "columns" are actual stone trees, with actual branches and "leaves" of rocks and crystal colors. The derro are gone. And you hear a low rumbly chuckle from somewhere up in the branches.

PC: Wait...Where'd this forest of stone trees come from? Where'd the derro go? What do you mean we're still in the same room?...and where's that laughing coming from? "

Actually, now, I'm seeing Grazzt as the catepillar...lounging about on a giant mushroom cap, smoking his hookah...kinda looking and sounding like "Him" from the Powerpuff Girls. hahaha.


Well, least I know how I'm re-writing things if i don't like what I see.

 

[Fralex]

Totally. Like, here's your Wonderland...but through Abyss-colored glasses...Make the party say, "But I thought we were supposed to be in the underdark? What's with this red cloudy sky and sulfur-scented shortbreads that say "Eat me"? Oh! There's a drow in a waistcoat...he's going to the underdark for sure! We follow him into that hole..."

DM: You come out into a cavern of natural columns. DERRO AMBUSH! [combat combat] Round one's finished. You notice the "columns" are actual stone trees, with actual branches and "leaves" of rocks and crystal colors. The derro are gone. And you hear a low rumbly chuckle from somewhere up in the branches.

PC: Wait...Where'd this forest of stone trees come from? Where'd the derro go? What do you mean we're still in the same room?...and where's that laughing coming from? "

Actually, now, I'm seeing Grazzt as the catepillar...lounging about on a giant mushroom cap, smoking his hookah...kinda looking and sounding like "Him" from the Powerpuff Girls. hahaha.


Well, least I know how I'm re-writing things if i don't like what I see.

Actually, you just gave me an idea. Have you ever heard of the Tiffany Aching Discworld stories by Sir Terry Pratchett? There's a book where she basically enters the plane of elves and faeries, a horrible world where dreams come true. Haunting the land are creatures called "Dromes," these sort of psychic spiders that catch prey by spinning dreams for them to unknowingly walk into. The only way to escape the eventual starvation and digestion staying in the dream will cause is to find the creature in the dream that is actually the Drome in disguise, and kill it. It was a cool plot mechanic, and I always thought it would work well as a game mechanic, too.

 

[steeldragons]

Actually, you just gave me an idea. Have you ever heard of the Tiffany Aching Discworld stories by Sir Terry Pratchett? There's a book where she basically enters the plane of elves and faeries, a horrible world where dreams come true. Haunting the land are creatures called "Dromes," these sort of psychic spiders that catch prey by spinning dreams for them to unknowingly walk into. The only way to escape the eventual starvation and digestion staying in the dream will cause is to find the creature in the dream that is actually the Drome in disguise, and kill it. It was a cool plot mechanic, and I always thought it would work well as a game mechanic, too.

Love it. Love everything about it. Totally stealing those.

Now you've got my mind tripping up trope lane a bit and saying, "dream spiders"...underdark...spiders & drow...drow that worship/revere these dream spiders...capturing slaves/leading potential victims into these dream world" portals...a society of "dream-focused" drow...with no Lolth-related stuff needed.

Yes. These "dromes" have distinct possibilities.

Slight aside: I wonder if these "drome" psychic spiders had anything to do with -inspiration wise- the D&D race of psychic insectoids called [none too originally, if so] "dromites"?

 

[HobbitFan]

The last couple posts from Fralex and Steeldragons have been awesome in their creativity. Thumbs up guys!