Why all the demon love?

[demiurge1138]

But I agree. More CERTAINLY needs to be done with yugoloths. And that's something that's hopefully going to be apparent in the next few issues of Dungeon, with more of the critters showing up in Savage Tide here and there. Including stats and an important role for a unique one...

Excellent... I was pleasantly surprised by the recent appearance by a yagnoloth. I'll be delighted to see the yugoloths get a supporting role.

Demiurge out.

 

[Glyfair]

Both Erik and I prefer demons over devils, so I suppose that's a major reason why they've had such a presence in the magazines lately.

Actually, I was going to mention this in reference to Dragon/Dungeon if no one else had mentioned it. It does seem pretty clear that Erik and you have a very strong personal tie to the magazines. If you are into something it will likely get a lot of coverage in the magazines, if you aren't then the appearances tend to be pretty limited.

Still, the demons vs. devils comparison isn't just limited to the magazines. They are just a visible spot to show this tendency.

One of the things that intrigues me the most about demons over devils in D&D, I suppose, is that there's more or less no cap to the development of demons, since there's 666 layers of the Abyss and no strict hierarchy of demon lords.

I think this would be a good point if you were spending a lot of your effort creating new demons. For the most part, you are trodding on well traveled land. In fact, your attention to somewhat obscure existing details is one of the things that many fans of a fixed D&D canon enjoy. So this ability seems somewhat wasted.

 

[Shemeska]

But I agree. More CERTAINLY needs to be done with yugoloths. And that's something that's hopefully going to be apparent in the next few issues of Dungeon, with more of the critters showing up in Savage Tide here and there. Including stats and an important role for a unique one...

You know, you're now the second person to teasingly allude to something along those lines. This should be interesting.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Off topic from demons, but in fairness I should point out that 4-dimensional stereograms do not yet exist- so you'll be waiting for a while unfortunately. 5-D and higher are going to take even longer.

Oh, it's easy, you just need a half-decent time-loop generator (one that can be set to 2/24th second intervals), and of course someone not subject to the regular time frame so he can turn it off for you again (unless you yourself have access to the meta-timeframe).

I have an old one lying around if you need it. I can give it away quite cheap.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

...all of the loving seems to be focused on the demons, with the devils getting very little attention... Why the shift of attentions?

Succubi are cheaper

More seriously if your wanting more Devil oriented stuff the best piece of work I've seen on Devils and the Nine Hells done recently is The Gates of Hell it's not even a commercial product it's fan material. You can find it over on the Dicefreaks boards. Mind you they have a particular take on gods and powerful cosmic entities that means they're not designed for even low to middle epic characters to fight the lords of the Nine Layers let alone Asmodeus. So if that's your thing you'll need to restat some NPCs. But the atmosphere and fluff on the nature of Hell, its relations and internal workings are positively beautiful.

 

[DM_Matt]

he term "demon" also sees a lot more use in fantasy literature, while "devil" has a Judeo-Christian connotation. All of this is, of course, opinion and conjecture on my part.

QFT. Therefore, IMCs Demon refers to everything from the lower planes, and specific species names (i.e. Pit Fiend, Balor, Yagnoloth) and "genus" names (i.e. Baatezu, Tanarii, Yugoloth) are used as well, but no Law-Chaos catchall words are used. Also, CE demons are my least favorite, bc they are mostly just crazy and violent, but demons are usually too important to be mere combat encounters. LE and NE demons have plans and reasons.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

There's always the possiblility to consider Chaos to be complex beyond mortal ken, who think it is completely disorderly, random, but in truth its rules are just much more elaborate than those of order.

So demons' deeds are only seemingly random. Others consider them random, they themselves - only agents of Chaos - might even consider them random, but they ultimately follow rules or a Great Plan.

So that Demon appeared on the Prime, killed a bunch of people, spread some terror, but was slain by paladins before it could do really great harm, like that devil who managed to turn a whole church evil by making them persecute, torture and kill everyone who doesn't agree to their views? That devil accomplished a lot more, right?

Wrong! The demon might just have killed a couple of people and frightened another few people, but one of the people killed would have sired the grandfather of one of the greatest heroes of mankind (who would have abolished poverty and brought a thousand years of piece to the nations of the central kingdoms), were he not killed by a "random" demon attack. Oh, and that one guy who had to be commited because of his panic attacks? A decade later, he was released as the clerics of the sanitarium considered him sane enough to be sent out into the world again, but he lost all faith in good when he saw his wife and children being brutally killed by a nether horror. This man, a keen businessman, was fated to open a very successful business 15 years after the moment of attack, and that he will still do. But instead of the importer of spices he would have become, he started to trade in slaves, quickly gained enough political influence to make slavery legal in his country, and expanded his slave trade greatly, bringing misery to thousands.

Or maybe, one of the victims was the distant ancestor of the Great Hero who would have turned back the great Demon Incursion 10.000 years hence. That hero, and indeed all the 500 men separating him from his ancestor, will never be born, and in 10.000 years, the Abyss will annex the Material Plane. No more than 2000 years later, they will have crushed all the other planes from there.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

For Demons and Chaotic Evil I've always felt that WH40K had some very good ideas to port over in how they handled daemons(the WH kind) and their goals, motivations, and actions.

 

[Victim]

It seems more like the other way around to me. Devils and Yugs seem to have far more cosmological importance. Demons are just mindless destroyers apparently, despite 2 varieties existing just for temptation plus mental stats on par with devils.

 

[DM_Matt]

There's always the possiblility to consider Chaos to be complex beyond mortal ken, who think it is completely disorderly, random, but in truth its rules are just much more elaborate than those of order.

So demons' deeds are only seemingly random. Others consider them random, they themselves - only agents of Chaos - might even consider them random, but they ultimately follow rules or a Great Plan.

So that Demon appeared on the Prime, killed a bunch of people, spread some terror, but was slain by paladins before it could do really great harm, like that devil who managed to turn a whole church evil by making them persecute, torture and kill everyone who doesn't agree to their views? That devil accomplished a lot more, right?

Wrong! The demon might just have killed a couple of people and frightened another few people, but one of the people killed would have sired the grandfather of one of the greatest heroes of mankind (who would have abolished poverty and brought a thousand years of piece to the nations of the central kingdoms), were he not killed by a "random" demon attack. Oh, and that one guy who had to be commited because of his panic attacks? A decade later, he was released as the clerics of the sanitarium considered him sane enough to be sent out into the world again, but he lost all faith in good when he saw his wife and children being brutally killed by a nether horror. This man, a keen businessman, was fated to open a very successful business 15 years after the moment of attack, and that he will still do. But instead of the importer of spices he would have become, he started to trade in slaves, quickly gained enough political influence to make slavery legal in his country, and expanded his slave trade greatly, bringing misery to thousands.

Or maybe, one of the victims was the distant ancestor of the Great Hero who would have turned back the great Demon Incursion 10.000 years hence. That hero, and indeed all the 500 men separating him from his ancestor, will never be born, and in 10.000 years, the Abyss will annex the Material Plane. No more than 2000 years later, they will have crushed all the other planes from there.

Now you are making Chaos not chaotic at all. It seems wrong to assume that they have further time horizons and more complex plans than the LE or NE ones. If that were the case, they would not be chaotic and the others could not be more lawful than they.