D&D General What if the Blood War ended? (Possible Outcomes Discussion)

[Kobold Avenger]

Or the stories and beliefs could just be wrong. I find the idea that the lower planes are so vastly more power than the upper planes just insulting. Definitely not my vision of the multiverse.

All Celestials except for Quesars (which are constructs) come from souls, for Fiends some come from souls and some are spontaneously created from the Lower Planes themselves. 2e often had the idea that Good was a hard thing to do or be, but Evil was easy and this reflects that idea.

But perhaps the most important idea outside anything in the Planescape setting, and also something that is probably 2e but could have carried over in later editions: is the idea that if the Celestials were powerful enough to vanquish all Fiends, why would there ever be a need for any Heroes like the Player Characters?

 

[dave2008]

But perhaps the most important idea outside anything in the Planescape setting, and also something that is probably 2e but could have carried over in later editions: is the idea that if the Celestials were powerful enough to vanquish all Fiends, why would there ever be a need for any Heroes like the Player Characters?

I never said the celestials were powerful enough to vanquish all fiends. I just insinuated they should be similar in power (in total) to all the fiends. I said the fiends shouldn't be "vastly more powerful" than the celestials. So there is still a place for heroes to stop fiends from gaining the upper hand and also to thwart evil mortal followers of the fiends and other evil outsiders.

 

[jgsugden]

In my setting, the Gods created Angels, Asmodeus broke off the Angels and created Devils (and rose to Godhood) and then the Far Realm collided with the Primary Planes, resulting in Lawful Devils becoming Chaotic Demons. Since then, the Demons have attempted to assault the 9 Hells to gain control of Nessus for some unexplained reason. While mortals describe him as a Diabolic figure (literally), he has always explained himself as someone that seeks only just compensation for all he and his Devils do to safeguard the Planes from the Demonic threat. As all others owe him their very existence, that is the compensation he expects to be paid - all of existence.

If the Demons were to battle through the Nine Hells, reach Nessus and wrest control from Asmodeus, he claims all of existence would end.

If the Devils were to exterminate all of Demonkind, Asmodeus would turn his sights on collecting his just reward.

If both Demons and Devils were wiped from existence, and the Hells left empty, the Gods that reside there would capitalize upon the vacancy and replace these threats with new dangers to assault the mortal plane.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

There's the legend, in that it was only brought up in one book outside of PS at the end of 2e and then outright ignored later on, is that Asmodeus really is the Persian/Zoroastrian God of Evil Ahriman/Angra Mainyu, and was banished by his counterpart Jazirian the God of Coatls (which I assume would make Jazirian the secret identity of Ahura Mazda). But that Zoroastrian backstory is one story how good and evil of the lawful side came to be.

I think there's a similar story for Chaos where all chaotic beings once were part of the forces of the Queen of Chaos including the Obyrith Demons and Planar Eladrin like Queen Morwel. But after that primal conflict some like Queen Morwel became Celestials, and others went to the Abyss.

There's a lot of contradictory stories out there about the planes, but many of them have some form of the truth.

 

[jasper]

4. it is a draw. Now Hell Drill Sergants and Abyss Drill Sergants are trying to figure out how long they can make their troops do Police Call before they revolt. (Police call is picking up Litter).

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

There's the legend, in that it was only brought up in one book outside of PS at the end of 2e and then outright ignored later on, is that Asmodeus really is the Persian/Zoroastrian God of Evil Ahriman/Angra Mainyu, and was banished by his counterpart Jazirian the God of Coatls (which I assume would make Jazirian the secret identity of Ahura Mazda). But that Zoroastrian backstory is one story how good and evil of the lawful side came to be.

I think there's a similar story for Chaos where all chaotic beings once were part of the forces of the Queen of Chaos including the Obyrith Demons and Planar Eladrin like Queen Morwel. But after that primal conflict some like Queen Morwel became Celestials, and others went to the Abyss.

There's a lot of contradictory stories out there about the planes, but many of them have some form of the truth.

Yeah, I've heard that before, but a lot of the myths are contradictory. In any hypothetical scenario where one side wins, they find a way around the fact that Asmodeus may or may not be one of the gods that created the multiverse. They could banish the Nine Hells, separating it from the Great Wheel, or some other way of destroying it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't have the time for citations right now, but I'm fairly certain a few sources claim that certain individuals (including Graz'zt) actually intend for the Blood War to end with an alliance between all fiends to defeat the celestials.

4E lore at least holds that Asmodeus became a devil after one of the most ancient demon lords, Pazuzu, convinced Asmodeus to rebel against his god and take a piece of the Seed of Evil from the Heart of the Abyss to kill that god with. This theft ignited the Blood War. Pazuzu also is loyal to one of the most ancient and powerful demon lords, the Queen of Chaos.

That could certainly be an option, I'll add that to the list of scenarios above.
Edit: Added to the OP. Now, there's a fourth scenario.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

A lotofit comes down to the Origin of Demons and Asmodeus's Original Purpose and Ultimate Plan.

Yeah, but this more comes down to ignoring that, and saying what you think would happen for each scenario.

There are different versions of each and it changes what happens if one side even appears to be winning.

I'm sure there are hundreds of variants of each, and that's kind of the point of this thread. It'd be great if people could post their versions of each scenario.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

1) The Demons win the Blood War, and the Devils are dead/out of the picture in someway.
The demons are incredibly weak from the devastating war. The celestials and good gods martial support and their forces to wipe out the demons. The demons are nearly wiped out, but eventually some evil gods see them as an asset (and fearing they are next on the list), team up with the Yugoloths to repeal the celestial host. Eventually their is a stalemate and things go back to similar situation, just with evil gods more directly running the show. Some demons are eventual turned to lawful evil by such evil gods. recreating a lawful servant fiend similar to devils. Some of this might spill over the prime, but most of it occurs in the outer planes. The end result is that not much changes for Toril (maybe the loss of god here or there, the loss of devil contracts, etc.)

Okay, so the Celestials win, mostly? I could see this happening, but it does depend on how weak they are from beating the devils.

2) The Devils win the Blood War, and the Demons are dead/out of the picture in some way.
Same as option 1 really, with minor differences.

Same as my above response, but with demons being destroyed.

3) The Demons and Devils win the Blood War, and they are both dead/out of the picture in some way.
With the fall of demons and devils, the evil gods are freaked out! They quickly contract with the Yugoloths to release the primordials. With the primordials unshackled the gods and celestial host have to turn their efforts to that threat. While suppressing the primordials the evil gods of chaos recreate something like demons and the evil gods of order recreate something like devils. Assuming the gods suppress the primordials again, everything eventually goes back to a state similar to how it was before but greatly reduced as the multiverse has been devastated by the Great War. However, in this scenario Toril is probably completely wrecked, gone from the face of the multiverse.

Aren't the Primordials imprisoned on Abeir by Ao? I'm just curious as to how they manage to do this. I like the idea of the evil gods freaking out, I might steal that, but their response in my version would probably be different.

 

[dave2008]

Okay, so the Celestials win, mostly? I could see this happening, but it does depend on how weak they are from beating the devils.

IMO, it is highly likely that the wining side would be servery weakened. I mean it has been a stalemate for all of these years, so they are clearly closely matched. I also take the approach that the celestials are basically as strong as the fiends. So it wouldn't take much of weakening of the fiends overall might for the gods and celestials to rush in and finish them off.

Aren't the Primordials imprisoned on Abeir by Ao? I'm just curious as to how they manage to do this. I like the idea of the evil gods freaking out, I might steal that, but their response in my version would probably be different.

I don't know what the FR canon for primordials. In my game they are imprisoned throughout the multiverse and the mightiest of them is two orders of Power greater than Ao.