D&D 4E Yugoloths in 4E

[GAAAHHH]

Didn't they say that Ice Devils were related to /on loan from the Yugoloths? That could mean they work for both sides.

 

[SPECTRE666]

-Spoilers ahead Worlds and Monsters page 67
-Yugoloths Reconcepted by James Wyatt
[SBLOCK]-The Demons have welcomed their wayward cousins back into the fold. Once Neutral Evil Mercenaries in the endless Blood War, these Fiends are now TRUE DEMONS. They have dropped the schismatic-loth from their surnames: Mezzoloths and Nycaloths are now Mezzodemons and Nycademons.(The Mezzodemon is in the 4th Edition Monster Manual.)
-There is some speculation that these beings form a particular strain of Demonkind, servitors of a yet-to-be-named Demon Prince,and that they have more nuanced goals than most of their kin. One thing thats clear is that they're surprisingly willing to work with mortals-Mezzodemons have been sighted patrolling the streets of the great Drow metropolis Erelhei-Cinlu. they still have a mercenary streak that is uncommon among other denizens of the Abyss, who are usually content with destruction for its own sake. Perhaps as a result, they're more disciplined than most Demons, more able to coordinate their attacks, and more likely to be soldiers than brutes.
-THIS IS AN INTENTIONAL STEP BACKWARD TO THE ORIGINS OF THESE CREATURES, FIRST INTRODUCED BACK IN 1978 IN THE VAULT OF THE DROW ADVENTURE. Their names were always pronounced as if they were Demons, and they had close ties to the Drow from the first. In the absence of a NEUTRAL EVIL PLANE IN THE NEW COSMOLOGY,folding Yugoloths in with Demons or Devils seemed the LOGICAL SOLUTION. Their nature is more Demonic than Devilsh, and so they ended up in the Abyss-though they are perhaps the most Devil-like of the Demons.[/SBLOCK]

 

[Shemeska]

-Spoilers ahead Worlds and Monsters page 67
-Yugoloths Reconcepted by James Wyatt
[SBLOCK]
-THIS IS AN INTENTIONAL STEP BACKWARD [/SBLOCK]

I'll grant that part of the statement.

 

[Ripzerai]

"I am the Heart of Darkness" The gemstone replied, smiling into his mind and brushing delicate claws across the god's face, drawing bruises and age-spots across the flesh. "But my newfound friend, you may call me Larsdana, and I have so many things to show you.".

Smiling, Tharizdun reached forward and touched the gemstone.

Awesome. That made me happy.

And yeah, obviously folding them into the demonic race has nothing to do with "the origins of these creatures." That's a blatant misrepresentation. I don't know if Spectre666's "spoiler" is a direct quote, but if it is, it doesn't bode well if designers feel uncomfortable enough with their work that they feel the need to lie about their motivations.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I agree with Shemmy and Ripzerai. This is a severe failure of creativity, the designers keep pounding on the podium saying they're emphasizing what makes D&D unique and all I see is them making it into a thematic clone of every other fantasy RPG out there.

Then again I don't expect to do more with 4e than rip useful rules and systems out to use them in my preferred version. I'll probably end up the 3e Diaglo.

3e was the only true edition all others were just practice or aftermath

 

[pemerton]

The ultroloths might be the shattered embodiments of the shard of Evil that Tharizdun used to wreck the elemental chaos, and the baernaloths could be an even more distant and unknowable evil that gave that lovely little toy to Tharizdun in the first place, seeking to corrupt (another) multiverse with their touch. They aren't destruction, they aren't control and domination, they're the malign Other.

It is pretty clear that WoTC are trying to foreground the Temple of Elemental Evil in its modern interpretation (ie in which the Elder Elemental Evil is an aspect of Tharizdun), and to foreground Tharizdun as the god of entropy and dissolution.

In this cosmology, I don't think there is really room to posit Tharizdun as the mere victim of a different ultimate cosmological evil.

obviously folding them into the demonic race has nothing to do with "the origins of these creatures." That's a blatant misrepresentation.

Why do you say this? It may be that you have misunderstood the word "origin" to mean "ingame origin", whereas Wyatt clearly means "literary origin" and/or "metagame origin". And Mezzodaemons and Nycadaemons DID originate (in this sense) in D3 The Vault of the Drow. They were mentioned in encounter tables and stat summary tables in the 1st ed DMG, with a cite to D3. Whether or not one thinks it is a good thing to return to this, there is no misrepresentation.

Ultimately, the designers have chosen a Tharizdun/Elemental Evil cosmology over a Planescape/Yugoloth cosmology. Depending on one's tastes for planar tropes and literature this may or may not be a good thing, but I don't see how it can possibly be described as a lack of creativity, let alone as an act of deliberate malice.

 

[The Little Raven]

Ultimately, the designers have chosen a Tharizdun/Elemental Evil cosmology over a Planescape/Yugoloth cosmology. Depending on one's tastes for planar tropes and literature this may or may not be a good thing, but I don't see how it can possibly be described as a lack of creativity, let alone as an act of deliberate malice.

And I see it as reaching out to a broader audience, since Planescape's audience wasn't large enough to prevent it from being canceled and never revived. Ravenloft and Dragonlance, at least, both had large enough audiences that a 3rd-party company was willing to put up money to license the settings and use them. Planescape, apparently, was not worth the risk, which speaks volumes about how popular it really is.

 

[Shemeska]

And I see it as reaching out to a broader audience, since Planescape's audience wasn't large enough to prevent it from being canceled and never revived. Ravenloft and Dragonlance, at least, both had large enough audiences that a 3rd-party company was willing to put up money to license the settings and use them. Planescape, apparently, was not worth the risk, which speaks volumes about how popular it really is.

Not quite.

Planescape wasn't cancelled in the way you mean. It didn't have a seperate product line in 3e, but it was virtually omnipresent with every planar reference from the 3.5 DMG to the Manual of the Planes, the Planar Handbook, the BoVD, the BoED, Fiendish Codex I, Fiendish Codex II, and Expedition to the Demonweb Pits... it had arguably more exposure than Grayhawk, and certainly more exposure than the cosmology of either of the "active" settings. It was folded into the core defaults of 3e, not dropped or abandoned.

As far as 3rd party support: the Planescape setting was something of a special case in terms of "settings". It would have been virtually impossible to do as a 3rd party produced setting, since as a meta-setting it had links to and references to every other TSR/WotC world. You would either have to gut the material of those crosslinks, or pay a gross amount for the IP to those others settings it pulled from, and even then you probably would have had WotC looking over your back to make sure your material didn't unduly impact their own stuff. And while I can't quote a number, I've been told that early attempts to inquire about buying the PS license ended up with WotC pulling up a prohibitive price tag for it.

 

[The Little Raven]

And while I can't quote a number, I've been told that early attempts to inquire about buying the PS license ended up with WotC pulling up a prohibitive price tag for it.

From what I understand, no serious 3rd-party company was interested in the license, just fan communities, which weren't able to produce the money necessary to license the setting.

And the Great Wheel predates Planescape, as it was presented as Greyhawk's cosmology in the Manual of Planes from the 1980s.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And the Great Wheel predates Planescape, as it was presented as Greyhawk's cosmology in the Manual of Planes from the 1980s.

Hell, it appeared in the back of the 1E PHB and in Dragon articles before that.