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

[El Mahdi]

Chuck Norris?

Absolutely!

Chuck is the Universal Constant, keeping everything in balance.

 

[Voadam]

Generally, for the demons to overrun the world would require quite a few to get through at once. Demons lack the coordiation to plan and execute a full scale invassion, so most incursions are in small numbers.

You don't think chaotic hordes do full scale invasions? They only make incursions in small numbers because they don't do planning and coordination that well?

I have no problem seeing an unplanned invasion of massive numbers driven by circumstance and opportunity (historically speaking this could be population migrations).

 

[Shemeska]

Was there any canonical past deity involvement in the blood wars?

Yes, see 'Hellbound: The Blood War'. When the Abyss and Hell first became aware of the others' existance and the Blood War began its earliest phases, gods of law and chaos were actively involved. This began with more and more deific involvement till literally every single deity started to notice their deific essence literally fraying at the edges, progressively getting worse and worse, till a deity of chaos died as a result of it. Fearing the same, they withdrew and no longer take an active role in the war, but they do support the various sides, act through proxies, etc.

It's speculation as to what happened and who caused it. It might possible have been the wholescale sterilization of worlds on the material plane, starving the gods of worship, the actions of some of the NE protofiends (the Demented and other baernaloths, etc). The 'loths at least did the whole starve a god of worship on one recorded, later occasion, resulting in a slow, agonized transition from god to fossilized husk in the astral, but it's entirely up in the air if they or any of the other fiends were active in causing what forced the gods to abandon an active role in the Blood War.

But it's damn fun to speculate!