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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 2516663" data-attributes="member: 3649">I would just go back to the old idea of the thing forming a material body when it comes to a material realm, then being forced back into spirit when that body is destroyed. To really kill an outsider you have to track it back to it's own plane and destroy it there. That, of course, brings up the idea of the mortality of the soul: ie, it's possible to wipe out a soul completely. Instead of having lower planar creatures being fallen upper planar creatures, just say that the plane itself creates them. They are literally formed out of pure good or pure evil. Evil souls that go to those realms are just that: they don't become evil lower planar things except maybe through the intercession of an evil god (You served me well in life, so now you are a Vrok!). Unless you're dealing with a monotheistic campaign, that sidesteps the idea of the 'free will for outsiders' idea: they don't really have it. They are made as servants from the very stuff of their plane. They don't reproduce because there is no need for it: their numbers are effectively infinite already. There is no 'war in heaven' idea to create lower planar outsiders: they just are those things and always have been.  If you want them to be fallen higher planar creatures, just have an evil god corrupt them and take them into his service. They don't have to have free will for that to happen. Think of both sides as a kind of spiritual robot, created for a single purpose: to advance and serve an ethos and the ideals of a god. They really exist only so that the gods of both sides can rest and not have to micromanage every tiny little thing, and it allows them to be in more than one place at a time. They are inncorruptable save by the act of another god, so they are the perfect servants. Which brings up this idea: if you have evil gods and evil lower planar creatures... there is no punishment for the evil dead. They go to a plane where their evil god presides, so it's really just the same as a good soul going to the upper planes: it's a reward. The whole idea of the evil dead being punished might not even be true.  If you don't like that, then maybe there are no evil gods. The lower planar creatures are tormentors and the 'evil' gods are jailers, not tyrants. They oversee punishment and release those who have been punished enough. The 'evil gods' might like their job a little too much and come to have that 'policeman's viewpoint': that every soul is corrupt and not deserving of the upper planes. That could lead to actions that would certainly make them look evil in our eyes but they'd actually be a really harsh and uncompromising Neutral, always looking 'at the big picture' and caring nothing for the individuals. The 'creates a body on this plane' also opens up some possibilities. Creating a body may be taking a pure outsider and 'sullying' it with temporary mortality. Once it does that, it becomes capable of things it normally is not. It can mate, and may choose to do so for whatever reasons it has. A higher planar creatures might have been instructed to do so by it's godly master. (Go forth and create for me five children, that I might have permanent champions on the earthy plane!). A lower planar creature could have the same instuctions, for the same reasons. Now, the creatures born on the earthly plane do have free will of a sort, though they are going to be strongly inclined to follow the alignment of the celestial father or mother.  Another possibility this brings up is that maybe creating the temporary body, coming into contact with the mortal world, gives an outsider free will. Suddenly it's bombarded with questions about it's place, it - for the very first time - might wonder 'why do I do the things I do?'. Maybe that is where your fallen Upper Plane creatures come from. A host of them incarnates for some reason, then some fall from grace. They are not allowed back into the planes because they are 'tainted' so they go off and find their own place. Obviously one of the evil gods is right there with an offer: serve me and you will have revenge. Of course once they go to the lower planes they find they've been tricked - no body, no free will, so they wind up in the same position, just doing work for the opposite side. They don't need to reproduce - the god just copies them using the primal stuff of creation, like they made orcs and trolls and other things.</blockquote>

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