What holds the world in balance? (or, why aren't demons over-running the world?)

[malraux]

In the PoL 4e setting, kinda the point is that evil has overbalanced good. There are just a few points of light that have held out so far.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

In my homebrew, the multiverse is dominated by vast currents and rotations which make it difficult to travel in certain directions, kind of like swimming upstream. The Abyss is at the "bottom", and getting up out of it takes a LOT of effort - though slipping down into it is fairly simple

The Abyss is the last stop for any given bit of material existence. In a way, it's llke a series of cosmological sieves, serving to filter out any latent nastiness clinging to a particular "atom", before it "evaporates" into it's base elements to be slowly swirled back into the Elemental planes where it will be "recycled".

 

[Asmor]

For example, there might be a Good/Evil zero sum rule. So every demon that enters the world allows an angel to enter to balance him. Which btw explains why the forces of good are so reluctant to intervene directly, they don't want to allow a corosponding number of demons to intervene elsewhere.

Oh my god. That idea is freaking amazing. I'm totally posting that in my blog (with credit to you, of course)!

EDIT: link

 

[Crothian]

That is neat. Each time the party kills a demon eith an angel gets kicked out of the world or it would allow another demon to enter theirs.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Andor's idea is excellent.

One that shows up in RW occult lore is that our plane of existence is kind of like a room with a bunch of 1-way doors with handles only on our side. IOW, while a person on our plane can open a door, a being on the outside cannot- at least, not easily- and yet, while here, some of those beings are quite capable of summoning allies.

Another idea is that, regardless of type, other planar beings are bound by supernatural rules that govern and limit what they can and cannot do. And we don't know all the rules. Those rules aren't just laws, but rather part of the innate structure that makes up the fiber of those beings. They can't break those rules any more than you or I could bend our elbows 360deg.

 

[Scribble]

Chuck Norris?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

At least in 4e, my impression is that while the demons are utterly, destructively evil, they have a terrible time coordinating their attacks and spend about as much time fighting themselves as they do others. And, when it comes right down to it, most of the other entities in the world don't like demons. So the combination of lacking of coordination and facing a reasonably unified front all help to keep demons in line.

But yeah, as malraux said, the PoL setting is pretty grimdark. There may be a balance between all the forces currently, but it's definitely an unstable equilibrium.

 

[Desdichado]

Think about it: in the D&D universe--whether the old Great Wheel set-up or the new cosmology--you have countless deities of every possible alignment and ideology; you have planes of purist evil, including the near endless Abyss that is teeming with demons, not to mention the many epic level adventurers that seek their own immortality.

How does the world stay in balance? A specific question might be, why hasn't the maw of the Abyss opened up and flooded the world (whether your homebrew, Eberron, Greyhawk, etc)?

Is there a canonical reason? What about yours, if you've thought of it?

Who's to say that they haven't? In my settings, it tends to be more subtle than rampaging demons eating people all over the place, though. My pantheon is largely made up entirely of demon lords. They mostly keep the rank and file from interfering with their mortal fields, because that means a poor crop of new souls to refresh the ranks, after all.

 

[Desdichado]

But yeah, as malraux said, the PoL setting is pretty grimdark.

Grimdark? Where is that on the continuum between Shadowfell and Scarytown?

 

[Gort]

Heroes of course, silly!