SPECTRE666 said:-Spoilers ahead Worlds and Monsters page 67
-Yugoloths Reconcepted by James Wyatt
[SBLOCK]
-THIS IS AN INTENTIONAL STEP BACKWARD [/SBLOCK]
Shemeska said:"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.
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.Shemeska said: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.
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.Ripzerai said:obviously folding them into the demonic race has nothing to do with "the origins of these creatures." That's a blatant misrepresentation.
pemerton said: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.
Mourn said: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 said: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.
Hell, it appeared in the back of the 1E PHB and in Dragon articles before that.Mourn said:And the Great Wheel predates Planescape, as it was presented as Greyhawk's cosmology in the Manual of Planes from the 1980s.