Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ElyasRavenwood 10-05-07, 06:09 PM	I know this may be a stupid question. Is Asmodeus Lucifer by another name? If they are separate distinct characters in the D&D "mythology" Did Lucifer have a place in D&D "Mythology"? Did Lucifer loose a power struggle to Asmodeus? If he did what is he up to now "Roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it"? I’m just curious thanks.
Thegans 10-05-07, 06:13 PM	I know this may be a stupid question. Is Asmodeus Lucifer by another name? If they are separate distinct characters in the D&D "mythology" Did Lucifer have a place in D&D "Mythology"? Did Lucifer loose a power struggle to Asmodeus? If he did what is he up to now "Roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it"? I’m just curious thanks. In Dice Freaks version of hell their was a Lucifer taht Asmodeus relpaced but otherwise Asmodeus is from what I know the only one of the two that exists in D&D mythology. The main thing about Lucifer and Asmodeus is that Lucifer lost in his rebelion against the heavens while Asmodeus has so far succdeded when it came to his orginial 'rebelion." Lucifer was banished to hell after rebeling against God. Asmodeus gained control of hell after tricking a bunch of gods with a bunch of legal loopholes.
ArcTan 10-05-07, 06:18 PM	The very, very old Dragon magazine article about Hell says that Hell was founded by Lucifer and Lucifer was then supplanted by Asmodeus. Of course, this article had very little to do with the current D&D cosmology, and relied fairly heavily on real-Earth history that jars with D&D history a lot. Asmodeus supposedly replaced Lucifer at a time when Evil became more institutional and less personalized, and the old Prince of Hell was overthrown by his scribe and accountant, at the time on Earth we call the Enlightenment and the rise of modernity. Of course, said rise to modernity never happened in D&D, and the Baator we have now bears little resemblance to the way more obviously Dantesque Hell of that article. Now the only reference to "Lucifer" anywhere is an offhand, throwaway reference in Book of Vile Darkness that says there are rumors that Asmodeus overthrew an older ruler of Hell named Lucifer or Satan -- but this has been contradicted in the origin story of Fiendish Codex II, which makes it pretty clear that Asmodeus has always been the ruler of Hell since it was brought into existence by the Pact Primeval.
ArcTan 10-05-07, 06:21 PM	In Dice Freaks version of hell their was a Lucifer taht Asmodeus relpaced but otherwise Asmodeus is from what I know the only one of the two that exists in D&D mythology. The main thing about Lucifer and Asmodeus is that Lucifer lost in his rebelion against the heavens while Asmodeus has so far succdeded when it came to his orginial 'rebelion." Dicefreaks actually specifies that the entity of whom Asmodeus is only an avatar has always been the same, and Lucifer was just another avatar whose death was faked and whose replacement with Asmodeus was meant to accomplish some kind of political goal. I dunno -- I don't like Dicefreaks' Hell that much, particularly this story, which uses the Planescape "Serpents of Law" concept, which I thought was kinda hokey. Lucifer was banished to hell after rebeling against God. Asmodeus gained control of hell after tricking a bunch of gods with a bunch of legal loopholes. The 4e explanation will be closer to the "banished to Hell" explanation, and will return to Hell's roots as a place of *punishment* for the Devil himself as well as the mortal souls he ensnares.
Devil Gnasher 10-05-07, 06:56 PM	In standard D&D, no. But I do have a few basic campaign ideas that involve three D&D Archfiends as Lucifer figures. All three of them were great and mighty angelic lords, all three turned away from their lord and creator and those three are now known as the "Princes" or their respective fiends. Of the three their angelic names are all but lost, but two of them are well known by other names. The two are known by the names of Asmodeus and Demogorgon. Yes, that Demogorgon. Also the angels that fell, looked much like they do now. Their forms may have been twisted and corrupted slightly, but they still look much like they fomerly did. This would include both pit fiends (post-fall name) and fallen solars.
Thegans 10-05-07, 07:10 PM	Dicefreaks actually specifies that the entity of whom Asmodeus is only an avatar has always been the same, and Lucifer was just another avatar whose death was faked and whose replacement with Asmodeus was meant to accomplish some kind of political goal. I dunno -- I don't like Dicefreaks' Hell that much, particularly this story, which uses the Planescape "Serpents of Law" concept, which I thought was kinda hokey. The 4e explanation will be closer to the "banished to Hell" explanation, and will return to Hell's roots as a place of *punishment* for the Devil himself as well as the mortal souls he ensnares. Actaully they might not have been the same person but otherwize I agree. As for the 4e explaination Asmodeous would still have had more success then Lucifer.
ElyasRavenwood 10-05-07, 11:30 PM	ArchTan thank you for jogging my memory. I seem to remember the Dragon magazine article you mentioned. I think it was called the “politics of Hell”. We are all free to make our own home brew worlds. One of my favorite parts of such world crafting is designing a mythology and putting together a pantheon of good and evil powers. Thank you gentlemen for all of your thoughts
zeratulcraft 10-05-07, 11:40 PM	Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Mephistopheles. All different names for the same Devil in our world. Also, Lucifer is not the Devil, Satan and Lucifer are two different entities.
ArcTan 10-06-07, 03:54 AM	Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Mephistopheles. All different names for the same Devil in our world. Also, Lucifer is not the Devil, Satan and Lucifer are two different entities. That's kind of weird, since equating "Lucifer" with "Satan" is a lot more common than equating the other entities you name with the Devil. The only source I'm aware of that talks about Lucifer and Satan being two existent, different beings is the Satanic Bible. The vast majority of people who literally believe in a being called "Lucifer" and a being called "Satan" equate the two (those people being Christians) -- people who don't equate the two, like most Jews, don't do so because they don't generally think of "Lucifer" as a name that properly refers to a person at all (much less a spiritual entity). The conflict is over whether a poetic description of the fall of the Morning Star, Venus, from heaven in Isaiah is a literal description of something that actually happened to a spiritual entity or merely a flowery way of talking about the political fall of the real-life King of Tyre by comparing him to a planet. Asmodeus is very rarely referred to as Satan himself, though I suppose it's always possible. But Jewish tradition simply has him as a particular evil spirit, and one who's particularly defined by sex and sexual lusts -- since the one time he appears, in the Apocrypha, he's shown in the Book of Tobit as lusting after a mortal man's daughter. Catholic demonologists followed this tradition and had him be the chief of the sex demons (incubi/succubi) and specifically a "prince" serving under Lucifer the Satan. If there's any character in D&D who most parallels the authentic Asmodai/Asmodeus, it's Grazz't. You can make a much more compelling argument for Beelzebub/Baalzebul simply being another name for Satan, or whatever name you want to peg on the Chief of All Bad Guys. Certainly that's how his name seems to be used in the New Testament, as a general term for the Chief of All Bad Guys (Jesus accused of casting out demons "in Beelzebub's name" rather than the name of God). But these references are very vague, and derived just from a general pejorative use of the word "baal" by the Jews (which was a generic word for "god" in other cultures and therefore came to be a general word for false pagan deities) and Beelzebub as a *specific character* only comes into being, again, with Christian demonologists, who usually decided he was a particular demon in the hierarchy of Hell under Satan, albeit a very important one -- most Christian-mythology-based fantasy follows Milton's Paradise Lost in making Beelzebub Satan's right-hand man, and the evil equivalent of God's relationship with the Metatron. As for Mephistopheles... enh. Mephistopheles is *way* less "real" than the other names -- that name only appears *anywhere* in the legends of Dr. Faust, which, frankly, basically everyone today thinks of as pure fiction, and was probably mostly thought of as fiction at the time too. I mean, it certainly makes *sense* to just think of Mephisto in the story as "the Devil", and certainly the name's been used a lot in modern fiction for "the Devil" (although that's because a lot of modern fiction, just like the original Faust story, only needs one "Devil" character and doesn't need to speculate on the cosmology of evil and whether this Devil is part of some kind of demonic hierarchy or not). But I don't think you can really out-and-out say that "Mephistopheles = Satan, case closed". Probably the most famous version of the Faust story simply as a story, Marlowe's play, makes it very clear that Mephistopheles is a separate entity from Lucifer and merely acts as his messenger. Other versions like Goethe's make this a lot less clear, but it would still seem very odd for the Lord of all Evil to spend *this much time* trying to mess with one dude. I mean, I guess it's arguably happened before, in the case of Job, though Job's torments all seem to happen with a few years and Mephisto seems to hang out with Faust for, like, *centuries* (or at least that's how long it feels when you have to slog through Faust Part I and Part II).
Count Arioch the 28th 10-06-07, 05:55 AM	Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Mephistopheles. All different names for the same Devil in our world. Also, Lucifer is not the Devil, Satan and Lucifer are two different entities. Satan isn't one being. satan means one who is against mankind. It's a general term, like person or catfish. It doesn't refer to one being at all.
setekh 10-06-07, 10:01 AM	Satan isn't one being. satan means one who is against mankind. It's a general term, like person or catfish. It doesn't refer to one being at all. Satan is derivative of Shaitan, meaning arch evil. (Roughly, anyway) Baalzebul Is also bastardised (something or another, I'm drawing a bit of a blank) And means Baal who flies -Which has of course been mis-translated as Lord of the flies in years since. Seems to have stuck.
Wight_Chocolate 10-06-07, 10:13 AM	Aren't there rules for Lucifer in a Monster Manual type book somewhere? He's completely different. His all-powerful magical rod doesn't have a ruby on it, for one thing.
yrogerg 10-06-07, 10:55 AM	Satan is derivative of Shaitan, meaning arch evil. (Roughly, anyway) Baalzebul Is also bastardised (something or another, I'm drawing a bit of a blank) And means Baal who flies -Which has of course been mis-translated as Lord of the flies in years since. Seems to have stuck. Not quite, and not quite. Satan derives directly from the Hebrew term for adversary. Traditionally, Satan was an angel whose role it was to challenge peoples' faith, as in the case of Job, for example. The associated stuff drifted significantly through the years, and by the the time of the New Testament, Satans role in a significant portion of the Hebrew Apocrypha had drifted to pretty much what we recognize about Christianity's Satan. After Christianity took off as a religion, Satan's role in Judaism drifted back to the traditional view. Shaitan is actually a more recent term, as it's Islam's equivalent of Satan. The word Shaitan is of Arabic derivation, however, and both Satan and Shaitan likely come from a Northwest Semitic root meaning "to be hostile," "to accuse." Ba'al meant 'lord' or 'master', and was used -singly or as part of a larger phrase- to refer to several dieties worshiped by ancient Semitic peoples. Ba'al Zebul, or "Lord of the High Places" was a deity worshiped in Ekron, an Philistine city. Some scholars hold that this was corrupted by Hebrew writers from Ba'al Zebul to Ba'al Zebub, literally, "Lord of things that fly", or more commonly, perhaps, "Lord of the Flies". (Zebub was also a collective noun for flies in Hebrew). It seems possible that this corruption could have been an intentional play on words.
Count Nerindil Van Seraph 10-06-07, 10:56 AM	This is all according to FCII: Let's see. He was once a beautiful angel, beloved by benevolent gods. He ****** them off, and they layed the divine smack down on him. He rules hell from the Pit on the ninth layer. He is cunning, charming and evil to the core. Well, if it looks like a chicken, sounds like a chicken and walks like a chicken...
Wight_Chocolate 10-06-07, 11:29 AM	Well, if it looks like a chicken, sounds like a chicken and walks like a chicken... It could be an illusion of a chicken. If it feels like a chicken too, we might be getting somewhere.
HuManBing 10-06-07, 12:32 PM	I haven't touched many chickens in my lifetime. I've eaten plenty though. Can we change it to "tastes like a chicken" instead? :)
Hochiu 10-06-07, 01:17 PM	The only source I'm aware of that talks about Lucifer and Satan being two existent, different beings is the Satanic Bible. The vast majority of people who literally believe in a being called "Lucifer" and a being called "Satan" equate the two (those people being Christians) -- people who don't equate the two, like most Jews, don't do so because they don't generally think of "Lucifer" as a name that properly refers to a person at all (much less a spiritual entity). Mmn. Its generally accepted, even among the Satanic/Luciferian faiths that Satan and Lucifer are the same being, with different levels of philosophical and intellectual meaning for the levels in the church. Different "faces" if you will. Most Luciferians I've met and consort with consider themselves superior intellectually than Satanists, and their view of the Morningstar as a Light bringer and as a Creator instead of just a failed, fallen rebel angel that encourages his followers to follow him into the descent from grace. My friend considers most Satanists children, in this regard. There are so many points between so many different scholars and non-religious writers about the nature of Satan and Lucifer. And then you throw the Talmud into everything, and people start equating Lucifer with Samael, which has been kind of blurred together over the centuries - Samael being considered the chief of the satans in God's grace, to tempt people away from their faith to root out the weak, and Lucifer being THE Satan. Which can be somewhat (not really) reconciled if one takes a general Miltonian view of the situation, and expand it with other scholarly articles that Lucifer, being the most cherished of all, was sent down by God as his JOB, either knowingly or unknowingly. In my own Homebrew (bringing the post to topic), I generally take a view heavily inspired by both Dante and Milton, along with some of my own ideas, to construct my version of Hell, as well as my own version of the Celestial Realms. Its fairly interesting, because I don't generally like to use most stuff from the core books. I guess I like reinventing the wheel.
Triyu 10-06-07, 03:20 PM	I haven't touched many chickens in my lifetime. I've eaten plenty though. Can we change it to "tastes like a chicken" instead? :) You made me wonder how Asmodeus tastes like. :mad: :P
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 10-06-07, 03:42 PM	I dunno -- I don't like Dicefreaks' Hell that much, particularly this story, which uses the Planescape "Serpents of Law" concept, which I thought was kinda hokey. The Serpents of Law was not a Planescape concept.
setekh 10-06-07, 04:24 PM	Not quite, and not quite. Satan derives directly from the Hebrew term for adversary. Traditionally, Satan was an angel whose role it was to challenge peoples' faith, as in the case of Job, for example. The associated stuff drifted significantly through the years, and by the the time of the New Testament, Satans role in a significant portion of the Hebrew Apocrypha had drifted to pretty much what we recognize about Christianity's Satan. After Christianity took off as a religion, Satan's role in Judaism drifted back to the traditional view. Shaitan is actually a more recent term, as it's Islam's equivalent of Satan. The word Shaitan is of Arabic derivation, however, and both Satan and Shaitan likely come from a Northwest Semitic root meaning "to be hostile," "to accuse." Ba'al meant 'lord' or 'master', and was used -singly or as part of a larger phrase- to refer to several dieties worshiped by ancient Semitic peoples. Ba'al Zebul, or "Lord of the High Places" was a deity worshiped in Ekron, an Philistine city. Some scholars hold that this was corrupted by Hebrew writers from Ba'al Zebul to Ba'al Zebub, literally, "Lord of things that fly", or more commonly, perhaps, "Lord of the Flies". (Zebub was also a collective noun for flies in Hebrew). It seems possible that this corruption could have been an intentional play on words. Aha a full account of it all. Thankyou, my understanding of it has always been a bit shakey ( I was guessing at Mesopotamia to be honest) Although I am sure I've heard Shaitan in old stories regarding my Namesake..
ArcTan 10-06-07, 09:51 PM	Aren't there rules for Lucifer in a Monster Manual type book somewhere? No. Not in any official D&D books. That was a line TSR never actually crossed. He's completely different. His all-powerful magical rod doesn't have a ruby on it, for one thing. I think you may be thinking of something from a 3rd-party book, maybe something by Green Ronin. There's all kinds of random crap in there.
ArcTan 10-06-07, 09:56 PM	Satan isn't one being. satan means one who is against mankind. It's a general term, like person or catfish. It doesn't refer to one being at all. ...Says who? I'm always amused by people who try to talk about what the "real" truth is about contentious religious terminology. The term as used in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) refers to a singular entity. It's used as a title rather than a name -- haSatan or "the Satan", meaning "the Accuser" -- and it seems to be describing his *role* as a prosecuting attorney of sorts when evaluating Job's status before God more than his name or nature. Even so, that's hardly "proof" that he's only one among many, rather than this being a unique position -- indeed, the evidence seems to indicate that it *is* a unique position, since he's *the* Satan, after all, and no other entities or angels are dispatched to help him in his task (indeed, God is very specific that *only* Satan is allowed to use his powers to test Job). Satan is mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament and Apocrypha, and always in a negative light, and always as a singular entity -- "the Satan" tempts David, "the Satan" tests Abraham through the sacrifice of Isaac, etc. By the time the Satan becomes clearly analogous to the Christian ideal of the Devil in the New Testament, it's also really clear that they think of him as some sort of singular very powerful anti-deity, and that while he has angels under his command, he himself is singular and unique and powerful -- this is the Satan that Jesus sees fall from Heaven, the Satan that may be identical to Beelzebub, the Satan that is represented as a great dragon in Revelation, etc.
ArcTan 10-06-07, 09:58 PM	Aha a full account of it all. Thankyou, my understanding of it has always been a bit shakey ( I was guessing at Mesopotamia to be honest) Although I am sure I've heard Shaitan in old stories regarding my Namesake.. Probably because the people who occupy Egypt now are Muslims and, when drawing parallels between old Egyptian pagan gods (like Setekh or Set) and the Devil, would use the Muslim, Arabic word for Satan -- "Shaitan" -- rather than the Hebrew pronunciation.
zeratulcraft 10-06-07, 10:34 PM	The thing I learnt about Satan and Lucifer is more or less this. Satan - The adversary, attempted to overthrow god by turning into a poisonous snake to slay god. God being all knowing and all powerful defeated the assassination attempt and sent Satan to earth, the prison made for him. Lucifer - The rebel, led a third of the angels against god and the others in an attempt to bring equality between man and angels. Why should the first born be the ones to serve the second born, afterall? The Lucifer Host fell or descended to Earth. The seperation of Lucifer and Satan as two seperate entities is backed up by Wikipedia and a few other sites, as it is silly to rely on wikipedia solely. As well as many writings from the Vatican itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer (Top paragraphs) http://www.steliart.com/angelology_fallen_archangel.html
Wight_Chocolate 10-07-07, 12:07 AM	The Tome of Horrors. Now I remember. Asmodeus is referred to as a separate entity in the blurb (and one that usurped Lucifer as the supreme ruler of Hell), so they're not the same. That is, if the Tome of Horrors is canonical.
ArcTan 10-07-07, 12:20 AM	The thing I learnt about Satan and Lucifer is more or less this. Satan - The adversary, attempted to overthrow god by turning into a poisonous snake to slay god. God being all knowing and all powerful defeated the assassination attempt and sent Satan to earth, the prison made for him. Lucifer - The rebel, led a third of the angels against god and the others in an attempt to bring equality between man and angels. Why should the first born be the ones to serve the second born, afterall? The Lucifer Host fell or descended to Earth. Which religion taught you this? The first reference to a third of the angels falling from heaven is in the Book of Revelations, which explicitly refers to the dragon who leads said angels as "Satan, the old serpent". The name "Lucifer" does not actually exist in the Bible, since the Bible is written in Greek and Hebrew and "Lucifer" is Latin -- "Lucifer" is the Latin translation, in the Vulgate, of the Greek name for the "morning star" or Venus used in the Septuagint (a Greek translation from Hebrew). The seperation of Lucifer and Satan as two seperate entities is backed up by Wikipedia and a few other sites, as it is silly to rely on wikipedia solely. As well as many writings from the Vatican itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer (Top paragraphs) http://www.steliart.com/angelology_fallen_archangel.html I don't actually see the separation in the Lucifer article. The opening paragraphs describe "Lucifer" being a poetic term for the planet Venus, and the fact that the Isaiah passage is referring to a Middle Eastern king who's being *compared* to a celestial body -- *not* a separate word for a different fallen angel from Satan. When "Lucifer" literally means a fallen angel, then the people who say that mean that entity to be the same as the entity Satan. As for the site you link to, I'm taking it with several grains of salt, since the author claims to be writing from memory and is writing in a site predominantly about graphic design and art, not about religion or mythology. I don't know about the "serpent who tried to poison God" theory, although it sounds like a reference to one of Satan's other names, Samael.
ArcTan 10-07-07, 12:20 AM	The Tome of Horrors. Now I remember. Asmodeus is referred to as a separate entity in the blurb (and one that usurped Lucifer as the supreme ruler of Hell), so they're not the same. That is, if the Tome of Horrors is canonical. Tome of Horrors is a Necromancer Games production and has nothing to do with either TSR or WotC's canon for D&D.
Thegans 10-07-07, 12:33 AM	Which religion taught you this? The first reference to a third of the angels falling from heaven is in the Book of Revelations, which explicitly refers to the dragon who leads said angels as "Satan, the old serpent". The name "Lucifer" does not actually exist in the Bible, since the Bible is written in Greek and Hebrew and "Lucifer" is Latin -- "Lucifer" is the Latin translation, in the Vulgate, of the Greek name for the "morning star" or Venus used in the Septuagint (a Greek translation from Hebrew). I don't actually see the separation in the Lucifer article. The opening paragraphs describe "Lucifer" being a poetic term for the planet Venus, and the fact that the Isaiah passage is referring to a Middle Eastern king who's being *compared* to a celestial body -- *not* a separate word for a different fallen angel from Satan. When "Lucifer" literally means a fallen angel, then the people who say that mean that entity to be the same as the entity Satan. As for the site you link to, I'm taking it with several grains of salt, since the author claims to be writing from memory and is writing in a site predominantly about graphic design and art, not about religion or mythology. I don't know about the "serpent who tried to poison God" theory, although it sounds like a reference to one of Satan's other names, Samael. At the risk of violating the code of conduct, religions and myths change over time. While Lucifer was originally used to describe a mortal king it is now generally viewed by most of christiandom as another name for the Devil to describe his pre fall state. The original religoious texts say differently but the catholic church says that Lucifer and Satan are indeed the same being. I don't generally believe any of it but Lucifer and Satan are practically synonyms as far as modern christianity is concerned.
ElyasRavenwood 10-07-07, 02:30 AM	Thank you Gentlemen for all of your intersting posts. I have enjoyed reading them. Lets see White chocolat i think there are statistics for Lucifer in the Tome of Horrors on page 101 and 102. He is listed CR is 39. quite nasty. woops, it seems like this has been mentioned all ready. I was just curious about Asmodeus and Lucifer. I seem to remember vaguely the "politics of Hell" aritcle in Dragon magazine quite a while ago and something about Asmodeus diposing Lucifer.
Rohano 10-08-07, 02:24 AM	1) Dicefreaks has absolutely nothing to do with the original question. Dicefreaks interpretations and rewritings have no ground here or in D&D canon. 2) D&D's policy is to not step on Christianity's toes. 3) Baator is quite clearly modelled on Dante's Inferno. This places Asmodeus in place of Lucifer. "Lucifer" is not used in D&D because... lawsuits... angry Christians... etc. 4) Baalzelbul is not another name for Satan. Baalzelbul was an evil present on Earth before Satan was banished. Judeo-Christian "historical records" about that subject are quite clear and modern beliefs are very conflicted in that people listen to what they hear rather than what's already holy canon. To be specific, Baal was one of the many great evils present on Earth before Satan descended. 5) Despite what Dante's Inferno says and what outdated D&D material says, Lucifer, in Christian canon, is not in Hell. He is doomed to wander the earth. I'll reiterate what a few pastors are trying to say in their angry attempts to correct a lot of mistakes in modern Christian beliefs - Lucifer isn't out there trying to steal your soul or eat your children. He's just a ****** off ex-angel who supposedly walks the Earth, pretending to be human, while contemplating what he did in the higher realms. Just as God told him to do. "Get outta my house and think about what you said, young man. You're not comin' back until you apologize." To answer the question: Asmodeus, in a Baator that looks too much like Dante's Inferno, is supposed to be Lucifer. But it's the goal of Dungeons and Dragons to make Baator as independent of Christianity as possible.
ArcTan 10-08-07, 02:50 AM	4) Baalzelbul is not another name for Satan. Baalzelbul was an evil present on Earth before Satan was banished. Judeo-Christian "historical records" about that subject are quite clear and modern beliefs are very conflicted in that people listen to what they hear rather than what's already holy canon. To be specific, Baal was one of the many great evils present on Earth before Satan descended. ...Which "holy canon" is this? "Beelzebub" in the actual Bible is either the name of a pagan deity worshipped by the Philistines (as in the "Baal ze'bul" or "Baal ze'vuv", "Lord of the High Places" or "Lord of Those That Fly") or, in the New Testament, a name for someone who is clearly simply the Devil -- the Pharisees mention him as the "Prince of Demons" and Jesus doesn't challenge their use of the name. Indeed, his name "Lord of High Places" and "Lord of Those That Fly" seems to be a direct parallel of a New Testament epithet applied to the Devil, the "prince of the air" or "ruler of the upper air". I have never heard of a doctrine of there being "great evils on the Earth before Satan descended". I mean no disrespect -- there's a million and one different religious traditions sprung from the fertile soil of Abrahamic faith -- but claiming that the idea of there being various evil forces on Earth *before* Satan doesn't square with any "holy canon" I'm aware of. Christianity and Islam both historically saw Satan's fall as the originary source of evil on Earth. Jewish mythology and doctrine in the Talmud treats evil spirits as the Fallen, and very much says that they, like all creations of God, started out good and turned bad. 5) Despite what Dante's Inferno says and what outdated D&D material says, Lucifer, in Christian canon, is not in Hell. He is doomed to wander the earth. WHICH canon? I'll reiterate what a few pastors are trying to say in their angry attempts to correct a lot of mistakes in modern Christian beliefs - Lucifer isn't out there trying to steal your soul or eat your children. He's just a ****** off ex-angel who supposedly walks the Earth, pretending to be human, while contemplating what he did in the higher realms. WHICH pastors? If by "Lucifer" (a term not actually directly originating from the Bible) you mean Satan, the New Testament mentions Satan by name as a "prowling lion, looking for souls to devour". I'm aware there's some controversy about whether Satan is "in hell", given that he's repeatedly referred to as "wandering the Earth" (and one interpretation of his name says it originally comes from "Wanderer" rather than "Accuser") although it's clear that Satan is in a state of damnation (whether you consider Hell to be more of a place or more of a state or more of a little of both depends on your POV) and that, at the very least, he's *going* to Hell, or to a deeper level of Hell than he used to be in (that's the ending of Revelation). Just as God told him to do. "Get outta my house and think about what you said, young man. You're not comin' back until you apologize." I wish people would bother to qualify which religious tradition or source they're quoting from when talking about their source as the "real truth". No Christian tradition I'm aware of, and certainly not the Bible itself, talks about Satan as a passive force who doesn't do anything but brood. If anything, the most *neutral*, least "evil" portrayal of the Satan in the Bible, the Book of Job, portrays him as very much an active, powerful force who seeks to mess with human beings' lives (since that's *all he does* in that story).
Rohano 10-13-07, 07:23 AM	I'll be clear about holy canon; Holy canon, in my terms, meant Judean scripts, the Torah and similar books, the current Old Testament, and other documents that aren't nearly as popular but led to popular beliefs in all three of the major "Abrahamic" faiths (from which all other Judeo-Christian religions spring). Satan, the eternal wanderer, does indeed screw with mortals on some occasions. This is because he's demented, bored, and what else would you do if you had immortality and complete freedom to do anything you like? Screw with people, eat their souls occasionally, etc. My point is that he's not doing this 100% of the time that he's walking around. He's more of a passive worker of evil, if he's even working evil. Asmodeus is very active. He rules hell. He frequently slaps the hell out of Mephistopheles. This is not Satan, despite the fact that both of them may work evil with cruel subtlety when it suits them. Baalzelbul is a different evil entirely. If you want me to back up my claims with theological documents, then perhaps you and I could go to a library together sometime, but this is a message board and I don't think your eagerness to argue justifies any kind of care on my part. Frankly I don't care. My points are made, you may continue to disclaim them as you like.
yrogerg 10-13-07, 08:53 AM	I'll be clear about holy canon; Holy canon, in my terms, meant Judean scripts, the Torah and similar books, the current Old Testament, and other documents that aren't nearly as popular but led to popular beliefs in all three of the major "Abrahamic" faiths (from which all other Judeo-Christian religions spring). Satan, the eternal wanderer, does indeed screw with mortals on some occasions. This is because he's demented, bored, and what else would you do if you had immortality and complete freedom to do anything you like? Screw with people, eat their souls occasionally, etc. My point is that he's not doing this 100% of the time that he's walking around. He's more of a passive worker of evil, if he's even working evil. Asmodeus is very active. He rules hell. He frequently slaps the hell out of Mephistopheles. This is not Satan, despite the fact that both of them may work evil with cruel subtlety when it suits them. Baalzelbul is a different evil entirely. If you want me to back up my claims with theological documents, then perhaps you and I could go to a library together sometime, but this is a message board and I don't think your eagerness to argue justifies any kind of care on my part. Frankly I don't care. My points are made, you may continue to disclaim them as you like. Actually, both the bit about Satan wandering the earth and the bit about whether or not Baalzebub is a different entity are issues of some dispute. However, Christian canon is also pretty clear that Satan is prowling around for souls to steal/destroy/whatever. A passive evil he's not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_in_Christianity As far as the non-D&D Asmodeus (usually translated as Asmodai), he's really just a minor demon associated with lust that crops up in several works of quasi-canon and deuterocanon. Honestly, the way he shows up in those works would depict him roughly similar to D&D's Grazzt.
ArcTan 10-13-07, 01:24 PM	I'll be clear about holy canon; Holy canon, in my terms, meant Judean scripts, the Torah and similar books, the current Old Testament, and other documents that aren't nearly as popular but led to popular beliefs in all three of the major "Abrahamic" faiths (from which all other Judeo-Christian religions spring). You including the Apocrypha in this? Satan, the eternal wanderer, does indeed screw with mortals on some occasions. This is because he's demented, bored, and what else would you do if you had immortality and complete freedom to do anything you like? Screw with people, eat their souls occasionally, etc. My point is that he's not doing this 100% of the time that he's walking around. He's more of a passive worker of evil, if he's even working evil. The original original Satan isn't "fallen from Heaven" at all, or at least not that we can tell. That's a *later* belief, based on a (mis)interpretation of Isaiah's prophecy about the Star of the Morning falling from Heaven. Notice that the in the earliest reference to Satan, in Job, he's *in Heaven*, talking to God and the other angels (sons of God). The Satan who crops up in the Book of Job and the Book of Kings has very little backstory given to him. His name most likely means "Accuser", not "Wanderer", and his general role seems to be someone who trips up mortals into doing wrong as part of God's plan. To say that Satan is "cursed" to wander the Earth like the Wandering Jew is to put a lot of things together -- to identify Satan with the serpent in Genesis and *then* to identify him also with the Star of the Morning from Isaiah, which is a combination that we don't see any reference to in the early Old Testament. It's something that was only encoded in tradition by the time of Jesus, and said tradition really did make Satan the ultimate bad guy among the Fallen. Asmodeus is very active. He rules hell. He frequently slaps the hell out of Mephistopheles. This is not Satan, despite the fact that both of them may work evil with cruel subtlety when it suits them. Okay, see, Asmodai (Asmodeus is a Latinization) doesn't exist in the original original canon at all. He pops up in the Book of Tobit as a horny, lecherous demon who wants to have sex with Raguel's daughter. He most certainly does *not* "rule Hell". "Hell" was not a well-defined concept at the time the Book of Tobit was written, and Hell is not a big part of Jewish belief in general -- the concept of Hell as a specific place where the damned are punished derives from Jesus' concept of Gehenna and is much more a Christian belief than a Jewish one. The Jewish afterlife traditionally involved everyone going to Sheol (the grave) after death and then being resurrected and judged at the end of the world. The idea of an afterlife more concrete than that is a Christian thing. And the idea of the Devil being *in* Hell and trapped there is also a Christian thing. And Asmodai/Asmodeus was *never* the "ruler of Hell" before D&D decided to sub him in for Satan. Since the only canonical reference to Asmodai is his lust for Sarah, Asmodai in Jewish tradition is usually thought of as a satyr-like demon of lust and sex, and Christian tradition therefore thought of him as some kind of patron of incubi and succubi in particular. EDIT: Okay, I forgot, Asmodai also pops up in another apocryphal book from relatively late in history, the Testament of Solomon, where he appears as a powerful demon Solomon the Wise enslaved to help build the Temple. In this book, notably, Asmodai is *not* the chief demon. The chief of all demons is named "Baalzebul" and occupies basically the same role that the modern Satan does. Indeed, Solomon gains control over Asmodai by gaining control over Baalzebul (which lets him call on all his lackeys). It's pretty clear that this Asmodai is supposed to be the same guy as the guy from the Book of Tobit -- same obsession with sex, same rivalry with one particular angel (the angel Raphael). And Mephistopheles *doesn't exist* in the Hebrew Bible, *anywhere*. The name isn't even a Hebrew name -- how could he be from the Hebrew Bible? The name Mephistopheles comes from the Faust stories, which are 17th-century and not Biblical at all. The origin of "Mephistopheles" is, etymologically, unclear -- it's probably just something someone made up to look faux-Greek. Baalzelbul is a different evil entirely. If you want me to back up my claims with theological documents, then perhaps you and I could go to a library together sometime, but this is a message board and I don't think your eagerness to argue justifies any kind of care on my part. Frankly I don't care. I don't need you to go to a library. Just tell me which books you're referencing. (Not "theological documents", just books of the Bible or apocryphal books of the Bible.) You should be able to do that, at least. For instance, tell me what book of the Hebrew Bible *other* than Tobit mentions Asmodai, or what book of the Hebrew Bible mentions Mephistopheles at all.
Rohano 10-14-07, 06:55 AM	Before I bother reading all of your arguments, when I say Asmodeus was slapping around Mephistopheles, I meant the D&D Asmodeus. No matter how much you argue about who Satan is - he's still not Asmodeus. I think even you agree. Nor is he Baal. And I can cite BS wiki articles, too. Matter of fact, I can even go write one then cite it.
sciborg3 10-14-07, 01:14 PM	ArcTan is actually quoting real sources, and doing so correctly. I don't even know what your argument is about exactly, but I can vouch for his sources and say that you can check those sources yourself. I don't remember enough about D&D Asmodeus - wasn't he an accountant? - to really get into that...
ArcTan 10-14-07, 10:26 PM	Before I bother reading all of your arguments, when I say Asmodeus was slapping around Mephistopheles, I meant the D&D Asmodeus. No matter how much you argue about who Satan is - he's still not Asmodeus. I think even you agree. Nor is he Baal. Well, sure. But the D&D Asmodeus is almost exactly like the Christian Satan, or at least the depiction of him in Dante's Inferno. And the real-life Satan isn't like the actual Canaanite god Baal. But he's much like the figure of "Baalzebul" or "Beelzebub" *named after* Baal who appears in the New Testament and is the "prince of demons". And I can cite BS wiki articles, too. Matter of fact, I can even go write one then cite it. Er, no, in reality if you create something entirely BS on Wikipedia it'll probably get deleted or at least nominated for deletion pretty quickly, especially if it's about something big-name like "Satan" or "Lucifer". You might get away with it if the thing you're BSing about is highly obscure knowledge or about something very subjective, but the people who act like you can say "Abraham Lincoln was my dad and he won World War II" on Wikipedia and have it sit there for any length of time are generally people who've never used it. Not that I'm using Wikipedia to do anything more than jog my memory, anyway. I had to read all this stuff myself back in my Bible-thumping days (but you don't want to hear about my life story). Anyway, you can call my sources (the Book of Job, the Book of Tobit, the Revelation of St. John, the reference to Beelzebub as the "prince of demons" in the Gospel of Matthew) "BS" if you want, but that doesn't mean you don't have to cite *your* sources. I don't need you to hand me a yellowing scroll dug up from Qumran, so don't get high-and-mighty with talk of "theological documents". If you read this in a book of the canonical Hebrew Bible or deuterocanonical Hebrew Bible (Apocrypha), presumably that book has a name. What was its name, and where did you read it?
Lobsopdoy 10-15-07, 07:37 PM	Can we can the religious flamefest before a mod closes this topic?
ArcTan 10-15-07, 07:57 PM	I don't see it as a religious flamefest. I never claimed to actually personally believe any of the sources I'm quoting, and I'm fully aware of huge amounts of variation and change among religious beliefs about Satan over time and space. I don't think my *personal* beliefs about Satan (assuming I had any) come into this discussion at all, and they certainly should have nothing to do with what mythological or folkloric roots I think are important for making a Satan-like character in a *fantasy game*. The main reason I'm bringing this up with Rohano, in fact, is that I'm vaguely offended by his insistence that his particular view of Satan is the "real" one out of all the other ones that exist.
The Serge7 10-16-07, 09:29 AM	I don't see it as a religious flamefest. I never claimed to actually personally believe any of the sources I'm quoting, and I'm fully aware of huge amounts of variation and change among religious beliefs about Satan over time and space. I don't think my *personal* beliefs about Satan (assuming I had any) come into this discussion at all, and they certainly should have nothing to do with what mythological or folkloric roots I think are important for making a Satan-like character in a *fantasy game*. The main reason I'm bringing this up with Rohano, in fact, is that I'm vaguely offended by his insistence that his particular view of Satan is the "real" one out of all the other ones that exist. Pained as I am to agree with ArcTan, he's right. There is not one single view of Satan/the Devil in Christianity (traditional, folklorish, or mythological), much less when one pulls in various "satanic" personalities from other religions. The issue in creating a "Satan" for D&D requires that the designer picks and chooses from these various strains; s/he should know full well that in doing so, s/he's going to run into a variety of (often times contradictory) information regarding the personality.