Gelugons and Baatezu [Archive] - Wizards Community

Gelugons and Baatezu [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
androkguz
03-29-07, 08:41 PM Ok, gelugons are actually an excuse to start a threat about Risia. I simply love to detail the planes of Eberron :D

Diferently from my last threat I have no good idea on how to make Risia as cool as the Nine Hells, so I start by simply correcting the most notable weirdness in the Greyhawk-Eberron transmutation of Risians: Gelugons (Ice Devils)

In DnD standard, they can summon other Baatezu cause devils all live in the same hellhole. But in Eberron, they are alone in the infinite glacier. So my logical solution is: Baatezu only make sense in Shavarath so Gelugons are not Baatezu. I just can't think of what to give them in exchange of the power to summon stuff. Oh, and I changed their cold-resistance/fire-inmunity to fire-resistance/cold-inmunity.

Back to detailing Risia: post ideas, I would like to create a place that is heterogeneous (not just an infinite plane of ice), that has interesting places and interesting beings and that retains the essense of Eberron. I would also like to think of cold as an element (help required).
mhacdebhandia
03-29-07, 10:13 PM Well, looking at the core Great Wheel cosmology, Baator has two cold layers (Stygia and Cania), each very different to each other. A book like Frostburn has a lot of information on different types of cold terrain, naturally.

I guess my instinct would be to shy away from "frigid versions of normal terrain" like arctic forests or tundra, and more towards terrains of ice, frigid water, snow, and so on.

Now I'm imagining a mountain of rock that was long ago broken into pebbles by the action of water freezing and expanding, but which is held in the shape of a mountain peak by a layer of ice and snow around it.
androkguz
04-01-07, 02:19 AM Well, looking at the core Great Wheel cosmology, Baator has two cold layers (Stygia and Cania), each very different to each other. A book like Frostburn has a lot of information on different types of cold terrain, naturally.

I guess my instinct would be to shy away from "frigid versions of normal terrain" like arctic forests or tundra, and more towards terrains of ice, frigid water, snow, and so on.

Now I'm imagining a mountain of rock that was long ago broken into pebbles by the action of water freezing and expanding, but which is held in the shape of a mountain peak by a layer of ice and snow around it.

Beautiful, I'll check both books. The mounttain of pebbles is just brilliant.
Romulus LoneWolf
04-10-07, 12:06 AM Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells suggests in it's Devils listing the idea of replacing the "summon baatezu" ability with two bonus feats: Brand of the Nine Hells and the feat tied to whichever of the nine archdukes of Hell that devil serves. Brand of Levistus and Mark of Stygia seem appropriate here.

Brand of the Nine Hells (Levistus) allows you to wrap yourself in an armor of ice, giving you cold resistance 20 (not very useful for a Gelugon) and an extra 1d6 points of cold damage, all for 10 minutes. Mark of Stygia lets you stand on ice without a balance check, gives you a +4 bonys on attack and damage rolls if you and your opponent are on ice, and an extra 1d6 cold to your attacks for 1 round (2d6 if wielding baatorian green steel weapons).

Just rename and alter them appropriately to make them Eberron-appropriate, and you're good to go.
androkguz
04-11-07, 11:04 PM Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells suggests in it's Devils listing the idea of replacing the "summon baatezu" ability with two bonus feats: Brand of the Nine Hells and the feat tied to whichever of the nine archdukes of Hell that devil serves. Brand of Levistus and Mark of Stygia seem appropriate here.

Brand of the Nine Hells (Levistus) allows you to wrap yourself in an armor of ice, giving you cold resistance 20 (not very useful for a Gelugon) and an extra 1d6 points of cold damage, all for 10 minutes. Mark of Stygia lets you stand on ice without a balance check, gives you a +4 bonys on attack and damage rolls if you and your opponent are on ice, and an extra 1d6 cold to your attacks for 1 round (2d6 if wielding baatorian green steel weapons).

Just rename and alter them appropriately to make them Eberron-appropriate, and you're good to go.

Yeah, I just read about that in the book. That's actually the best solution to the "summon baatezu" problem. Two things might be worth noticing:
Levistus, acording to the Player's Guide to Eberron, is a Rakshasa Rajah trapped in the Frostfell. I'm not sure I wanna make him a Lord in Risia, so how do you people think that the Frost Paragons might be?
20 points of cold resistance is ridiculous when I have Gelugons have cold inmunity so what about some +5 to spell resistances? Does that sounds balanced?
Nived
04-12-07, 02:32 AM For the purposes of my game, demons and devils with the ability to summon other fiends, on Eberron I just supstitue it for other denizins of that plane, I haven't really fleshed it out mechanically, but I just glance at what they can summon, glance at the Planes of section of the EBC find something of comperable CR and summon that, I don't even care if they are of opposed alignment.

"Wait," Says you, "Why does that work outside the abyssal and infernal hirarchies?"

Simple, fiends (devils, demons, and other assorted fiends like the Rakasha of the material) are embodiments of their planes of existance, everything evil and wrong with that aspect of reality, sure, but an embodiment none the less... and that gives them the power to control their reality to a small extent, they can rip lesser creatures of their plane of existance out of their rightful place and force them to fight for them for a small period of time. Its just something they can do.

So for Ice Devils, instead of Lemures I'd use small ice elementals, instead of bearded devils I'd use a Chraal, or Rejkar(depending on my mood and the encounter), instead of bone devils I'd use Immoths.

Of course this only works if you have access to the Manual of the Planes and the MM II and III but hey it works for me.
Daydreamer
04-12-07, 02:53 AM Actually this is worth probbing into deeper.

What is the relationship between fiends there home planes? If i recall, the pit fiends are from the plane of fire, as are balors, it doesnt seem there would be a blood war between these two (though no doubt they are duking it out for power in that realm).
But are they to be considered more like elements, or are they still demons/devils, just from the same plane.
androkguz
04-12-07, 09:47 AM Actually this is worth probbing into deeper.

What is the relationship between fiends there home planes? If i recall, the pit fiends are from the plane of fire, as are balors, it doesnt seem there would be a blood war between these two (though no doubt they are duking it out for power in that realm).
But are they to be considered more like elements, or are they still demons/devils, just from the same plane.

Well, I already made a sketch of Fernia and in my campaing there is something like a blood war in a lesser scale in the plane between Balors, Pit Fiends and Elemental Lords.
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=794952 I posted some of my ideas there.

I really don't think that they can be considered demons/devils any more than any CE/LE outsider EXCEPT for the demons/devils that are "united" forces in Shavarath. That's why I'm removing the Baatezu from the Gelugons.

Now that I think about it, it would be good to think what does the Ice Devils do on the plane? They certaintly don't just walk around enyoing the cold and looking for adventurers so that the can have random encounters of EL 13.
Nived
04-12-07, 12:26 PM Well they're warriors with no war. So my natural inclination, should I ever want my players to explore Risia... would be to give them a war.

There are a couple ways this could work, all depending on the books you have access to.

The Core way would be advancing a few Ice Devils having each of them declare themselves king of their patch and fight each other.

If you have Frostburn you could have the Elemental Weirds and the Qorrashi Genies and the Elemental Weirds on one side of the conflict and the Ice Devils on the other.

Another interesting possibility glancing at Frostburn.... it has a heck of a lot of very high CR cold subtype Aberrations, the Shivhad is on par with a Daelkyr! Could it be that there is or was a war between Xotiat and Risia at one point?

Just tossing ideas out there.
Kaodi
04-12-07, 12:28 PM Well... what if the immoths were are the dominant species on Risia, and that at some point a legendary immoth bound a great many devils from Shavarath, draining their essences and used that to create new minions, the gelugons. While he could control many things about the creation of these minions, the immoth could not purge them of their connection to the devils and that is why they are able to summon lemures, bearded devils and bone devils.
Daydreamer
04-12-07, 10:45 PM If i had a spell that targeted baatezu's however, it would still work on a pit fiend?
They are 'technically-officially' the same race. They just are not native to the same plane. This is how i understood it. BUt it raises the quesiton of do they have any commitment to the Baatezuus as a whole, like they do in the standard cosmology.
Nived
04-13-07, 03:35 AM Simple their subtype represents that they're an aspect of everything lawful and evil from their aspect of reality. They're quite different as they're spawned from seperate aspects of reality (different planes of existance) however their core manifestation as a lawful evil creature spawned from a given plane causes them to have the similarities that the Baatezu subtype gives.

Or at least that's the best I can comeup with without having to change mechanics, which I wouldn't do unless the nature of Baatezu is a focus of a campaign.
androkguz
04-13-07, 01:38 PM If i had a spell that targeted baatezu's however, it would still work on a pit fiend?
They are 'technically-officially' the same race. They just are not native to the same plane. This is how i understood it. BUt it raises the quesiton of do they have any commitment to the Baatezuus as a whole, like they do in the standard cosmology.

In my campaing: yes, the spell wouldn't work on Pit Fiends, Ice Devils nor Lemures (Dolurrh)

Simple their subtype represents that they're an aspect of everything lawful and evil from their aspect of reality. They're quite different as they're spawned from seperate aspects of reality (different planes of existance) however their core manifestation as a lawful evil creature spawned from a given plane causes them to have the similarities that the Baatezu subtype gives.

Or at least that's the best I can comeup with without having to change mechanics, which I wouldn't do unless the nature of Baatezu is a focus of a campaign.

Well, Hell Hounds and Barghests both have the Lawful subtype as well as the Evil subtype, but they don't have the Baatezu subtype because they are not of that Greyhawk race of Devils in hell called the Baatezu. But in Eberron, what are the Baatezu? I say that we should all think of the Baatezu as the united force of Devils that fights in Shavarath against the Tanar'ri (not all the demons) and the archons. Pit Fiends should speak ignan, Gelugons should speak risian and neither have to speak infernal.

I mean, if you don't what to change the mechanics fine, in that case you don't even need an explanation for this stuff. But I do want to make a deeper description of Risia and their inhabitants and that includes making some changes so that they make more sense (little changes, the ones that I feel that the setting practically begs for, such as this)
ArcTan
04-13-07, 07:07 PM Actually this is worth probbing into deeper.

What is the relationship between fiends there home planes? If i recall, the pit fiends are from the plane of fire, as are balors, it doesnt seem there would be a blood war between these two (though no doubt they are duking it out for power in that realm).
But are they to be considered more like elements, or are they still demons/devils, just from the same plane.

Still demons/devils. They embody fire as a representation of Evil, not fire as a physical force.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
androkguz 03-29-07, 08:41 PM	Ok, gelugons are actually an excuse to start a threat about Risia. I simply love to detail the planes of Eberron :D Diferently from my last threat I have no good idea on how to make Risia as cool as the Nine Hells, so I start by simply correcting the most notable weirdness in the Greyhawk-Eberron transmutation of Risians: Gelugons (Ice Devils) In DnD standard, they can summon other Baatezu cause devils all live in the same hellhole. But in Eberron, they are alone in the infinite glacier. So my logical solution is: Baatezu only make sense in Shavarath so Gelugons are not Baatezu. I just can't think of what to give them in exchange of the power to summon stuff. Oh, and I changed their cold-resistance/fire-inmunity to fire-resistance/cold-inmunity. Back to detailing Risia: post ideas, I would like to create a place that is heterogeneous (not just an infinite plane of ice), that has interesting places and interesting beings and that retains the essense of Eberron. I would also like to think of cold as an element (help required).
mhacdebhandia 03-29-07, 10:13 PM	Well, looking at the core Great Wheel cosmology, Baator has two cold layers (Stygia and Cania), each very different to each other. A book like Frostburn has a lot of information on different types of cold terrain, naturally. I guess my instinct would be to shy away from "frigid versions of normal terrain" like arctic forests or tundra, and more towards terrains of ice, frigid water, snow, and so on. Now I'm imagining a mountain of rock that was long ago broken into pebbles by the action of water freezing and expanding, but which is held in the shape of a mountain peak by a layer of ice and snow around it.
androkguz 04-01-07, 02:19 AM	Well, looking at the core Great Wheel cosmology, Baator has two cold layers (Stygia and Cania), each very different to each other. A book like Frostburn has a lot of information on different types of cold terrain, naturally. I guess my instinct would be to shy away from "frigid versions of normal terrain" like arctic forests or tundra, and more towards terrains of ice, frigid water, snow, and so on. Now I'm imagining a mountain of rock that was long ago broken into pebbles by the action of water freezing and expanding, but which is held in the shape of a mountain peak by a layer of ice and snow around it. Beautiful, I'll check both books. The mounttain of pebbles is just brilliant.
Romulus LoneWolf 04-10-07, 12:06 AM	Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells suggests in it's Devils listing the idea of replacing the "summon baatezu" ability with two bonus feats: Brand of the Nine Hells and the feat tied to whichever of the nine archdukes of Hell that devil serves. Brand of Levistus and Mark of Stygia seem appropriate here. Brand of the Nine Hells (Levistus) allows you to wrap yourself in an armor of ice, giving you cold resistance 20 (not very useful for a Gelugon) and an extra 1d6 points of cold damage, all for 10 minutes. Mark of Stygia lets you stand on ice without a balance check, gives you a +4 bonys on attack and damage rolls if you and your opponent are on ice, and an extra 1d6 cold to your attacks for 1 round (2d6 if wielding baatorian green steel weapons). Just rename and alter them appropriately to make them Eberron-appropriate, and you're good to go.
androkguz 04-11-07, 11:04 PM	Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells suggests in it's Devils listing the idea of replacing the "summon baatezu" ability with two bonus feats: Brand of the Nine Hells and the feat tied to whichever of the nine archdukes of Hell that devil serves. Brand of Levistus and Mark of Stygia seem appropriate here. Brand of the Nine Hells (Levistus) allows you to wrap yourself in an armor of ice, giving you cold resistance 20 (not very useful for a Gelugon) and an extra 1d6 points of cold damage, all for 10 minutes. Mark of Stygia lets you stand on ice without a balance check, gives you a +4 bonys on attack and damage rolls if you and your opponent are on ice, and an extra 1d6 cold to your attacks for 1 round (2d6 if wielding baatorian green steel weapons). Just rename and alter them appropriately to make them Eberron-appropriate, and you're good to go. Yeah, I just read about that in the book. That's actually the best solution to the "summon baatezu" problem. Two things might be worth noticing: Levistus, acording to the Player's Guide to Eberron, is a Rakshasa Rajah trapped in the Frostfell. I'm not sure I wanna make him a Lord in Risia, so how do you people think that the Frost Paragons might be? 20 points of cold resistance is ridiculous when I have Gelugons have cold inmunity so what about some +5 to spell resistances? Does that sounds balanced?
Nived 04-12-07, 02:32 AM	For the purposes of my game, demons and devils with the ability to summon other fiends, on Eberron I just supstitue it for other denizins of that plane, I haven't really fleshed it out mechanically, but I just glance at what they can summon, glance at the Planes of section of the EBC find something of comperable CR and summon that, I don't even care if they are of opposed alignment. "Wait," Says you, "Why does that work outside the abyssal and infernal hirarchies?" Simple, fiends (devils, demons, and other assorted fiends like the Rakasha of the material) are embodiments of their planes of existance, everything evil and wrong with that aspect of reality, sure, but an embodiment none the less... and that gives them the power to control their reality to a small extent, they can rip lesser creatures of their plane of existance out of their rightful place and force them to fight for them for a small period of time. Its just something they can do. So for Ice Devils, instead of Lemures I'd use small ice elementals, instead of bearded devils I'd use a Chraal, or Rejkar(depending on my mood and the encounter), instead of bone devils I'd use Immoths. Of course this only works if you have access to the Manual of the Planes and the MM II and III but hey it works for me.
Daydreamer 04-12-07, 02:53 AM	Actually this is worth probbing into deeper. What is the relationship between fiends there home planes? If i recall, the pit fiends are from the plane of fire, as are balors, it doesnt seem there would be a blood war between these two (though no doubt they are duking it out for power in that realm). But are they to be considered more like elements, or are they still demons/devils, just from the same plane.
androkguz 04-12-07, 09:47 AM	Actually this is worth probbing into deeper. What is the relationship between fiends there home planes? If i recall, the pit fiends are from the plane of fire, as are balors, it doesnt seem there would be a blood war between these two (though no doubt they are duking it out for power in that realm). But are they to be considered more like elements, or are they still demons/devils, just from the same plane. Well, I already made a sketch of Fernia and in my campaing there is something like a blood war in a lesser scale in the plane between Balors, Pit Fiends and Elemental Lords. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=794952 I posted some of my ideas there. I really don't think that they can be considered demons/devils any more than any CE/LE outsider EXCEPT for the demons/devils that are "united" forces in Shavarath. That's why I'm removing the Baatezu from the Gelugons. Now that I think about it, it would be good to think what does the Ice Devils do on the plane? They certaintly don't just walk around enyoing the cold and looking for adventurers so that the can have random encounters of EL 13.
Nived 04-12-07, 12:26 PM	Well they're warriors with no war. So my natural inclination, should I ever want my players to explore Risia... would be to give them a war. There are a couple ways this could work, all depending on the books you have access to. The Core way would be advancing a few Ice Devils having each of them declare themselves king of their patch and fight each other. If you have Frostburn you could have the Elemental Weirds and the Qorrashi Genies and the Elemental Weirds on one side of the conflict and the Ice Devils on the other. Another interesting possibility glancing at Frostburn.... it has a heck of a lot of very high CR cold subtype Aberrations, the Shivhad is on par with a Daelkyr! Could it be that there is or was a war between Xotiat and Risia at one point? Just tossing ideas out there.
Kaodi 04-12-07, 12:28 PM	Well... what if the immoths were are the dominant species on Risia, and that at some point a legendary immoth bound a great many devils from Shavarath, draining their essences and used that to create new minions, the gelugons. While he could control many things about the creation of these minions, the immoth could not purge them of their connection to the devils and that is why they are able to summon lemures, bearded devils and bone devils.
Daydreamer 04-12-07, 10:45 PM	If i had a spell that targeted baatezu's however, it would still work on a pit fiend? They are 'technically-officially' the same race. They just are not native to the same plane. This is how i understood it. BUt it raises the quesiton of do they have any commitment to the Baatezuus as a whole, like they do in the standard cosmology.
Nived 04-13-07, 03:35 AM	Simple their subtype represents that they're an aspect of everything lawful and evil from their aspect of reality. They're quite different as they're spawned from seperate aspects of reality (different planes of existance) however their core manifestation as a lawful evil creature spawned from a given plane causes them to have the similarities that the Baatezu subtype gives. Or at least that's the best I can comeup with without having to change mechanics, which I wouldn't do unless the nature of Baatezu is a focus of a campaign.
androkguz 04-13-07, 01:38 PM	If i had a spell that targeted baatezu's however, it would still work on a pit fiend? They are 'technically-officially' the same race. They just are not native to the same plane. This is how i understood it. BUt it raises the quesiton of do they have any commitment to the Baatezuus as a whole, like they do in the standard cosmology. In my campaing: yes, the spell wouldn't work on Pit Fiends, Ice Devils nor Lemures (Dolurrh) Simple their subtype represents that they're an aspect of everything lawful and evil from their aspect of reality. They're quite different as they're spawned from seperate aspects of reality (different planes of existance) however their core manifestation as a lawful evil creature spawned from a given plane causes them to have the similarities that the Baatezu subtype gives. Or at least that's the best I can comeup with without having to change mechanics, which I wouldn't do unless the nature of Baatezu is a focus of a campaign. Well, Hell Hounds and Barghests both have the Lawful subtype as well as the Evil subtype, but they don't have the Baatezu subtype because they are not of that Greyhawk race of Devils in hell called the Baatezu. But in Eberron, what are the Baatezu? I say that we should all think of the Baatezu as the united force of Devils that fights in Shavarath against the Tanar'ri (not all the demons) and the archons. Pit Fiends should speak ignan, Gelugons should speak risian and neither have to speak infernal. I mean, if you don't what to change the mechanics fine, in that case you don't even need an explanation for this stuff. But I do want to make a deeper description of Risia and their inhabitants and that includes making some changes so that they make more sense (little changes, the ones that I feel that the setting practically begs for, such as this)
ArcTan 04-13-07, 07:07 PM	Actually this is worth probbing into deeper. What is the relationship between fiends there home planes? If i recall, the pit fiends are from the plane of fire, as are balors, it doesnt seem there would be a blood war between these two (though no doubt they are duking it out for power in that realm). But are they to be considered more like elements, or are they still demons/devils, just from the same plane. Still demons/devils. They embody fire as a representation of Evil, not fire as a physical force.