Why Fiends rarely enter the prime material plane overtly:

[Nightfall]

How do you know they haven't already? I mean if a fiend is smart, I mean REALLY smart, then it will just be subtle about such domination. After all, what's better, complete domination overlty, or covert corruption?

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Paladins wandering all over the place make the whole plane like one big minefield.

And if you operate openly, they start coming to you in droves, and they don't stop coming until you're dead, banished, or sealed in somebody's basement for a thousand years.

I swear, there's just unending hordes of the the things! It's a nightmare for any right-thinking, upstanding fiend! It's horrible, I tell you! Horrible!

It also tends to lower property values

 

[Mark]

Makes their minions look feeble.

 

[Nightfall]

Especially for Orcus' minions.

 

[Felix]

Isn't one fortress made out of skulls and mortared together with the congealed bodily fluids of the damned pretty much like another?

Indeed. That's why fiends don't go in for the nouveau riche McLairs that are popping up all over the prime inhabited by financially independent but tasteless necromancers. All the old money is on the planes.

 

[BOZ]

Also, fiends are lazy, and don't like to travel.

plus, they are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

 

[JustKim]

An infinite number of demons from an infinite number of abyssal planes will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Before they do that though I think they'd kill all the dragons because demons are not really very keen on literature.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

To raise the seriousness level of this discussion, becasue it is fun, and who wnats the fun to end.

To my mind, the lower planes are not only boring as ..... but they are also dangerous. Blood wars, lots of powerful folks around that can and will eat you for lunch and even the odd insane paladin who tries to assault hell.

On the other hand, the mortal realms are full of easy to charm, dominate and eat mortals who have no prayer, for the nost part, of stopping the demon or devil. It is party time, to be frank.

Instead of being a level 20 demon (out of 666 levels) you are sudddenly a near-god and people are more than willing to treat you like one. Fresh blood, fear and respect. Just what every demon or devil craves.

And what do you ahve to go home to? Endless dark planes, fatal manipulations, and worse.

Hey, if I were one of these, and forall you know I might be , I would want to stick around as long as possible, too.

It pays to be careful

 

[Deadguy]

As an aside, I rather like the Eberron solution. Outsiders don't come to the Prime because it isn't their home, and if they spend much time there they become corrupted by it! These are beings of spirit, not flesh, and fleshly concerns weigh heavily upon them.

(And of course, a lot of the classic demons are in fact interred within the Underworld, which lies inside Eberron, sealed away by an immortal force.)

 

[Staffan]

How do you know they haven't already? I mean if a fiend is smart, I mean REALLY smart, then it will just be subtle about such domination. After all, what's better, complete domination overlty, or covert corruption?

And remember, the Home Office elevator leads right back to Earth.