Tan'nari [Archive] - Wizards Community - Pages Merged by Solauren

Tan'nari [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
_Random_
05-02-07, 11:25 PM Hi, I am writing a short story, and it takes place on the plane of the Tan'nari.
I had a few holes in the plane, portals to other places, including the material world. But what happens when a Tan'nari goes to a plane of Lawful Good?
Does:
He Dissolve?
He go into fits of agony?
Get thrown into some sort of prizon by the natives (if they are powerful enough)?
Does Absolutely* Nothing* happen, other than the transportation from one realm to another?

I Really* would like to know the answer. I wonder if Lord Karsus knows? He seems to be popular, if you didn't read the first post I sent out (where I stated that the first time...As if it isn't obvious.)
Thank you all for your support! (hopefully* it* is* support*)

I ussually go overboard with smilies. My computer is probably the problem, but I couldn't use the shortcut editor bar. This sucks*!

*Italicized
Gray Richardson
05-03-07, 12:52 AM He suffers strong penalties to his charisma based checks due to the plane being aligned opposite of him on both axes. See Player's Guide to Faerun for more details.

Other than that, nothing too bad except for it being a hostile environment. If he drops into the sea of Lunia (the first layer of Mount Celestia on the plane of the House of the Triad) he would take the same damage as if he were immersed in holy water. And everyone who appears in Lunia always materializes over the sea, off-shore, it's a quirk of that layer.

However, the celestial planes do not otherwise pose an environmental hazzard per se to fiends who travel them.

There may, however, be cultural hazzards. Archons and certain other celestials might slay a fiend on sight--or at least take it in for questioning. The plane is not so much inhospitable to fiends so much as the people who live there.
Zandilar
05-03-07, 01:09 AM Heya,

Not trying to be mean here, but it's spelt Tanar'ri - if you're writing a story, it's best to get the spelling right. ;)

To italicize something preface the word with [ i] (obviously without the space) and finish with [ /i] (again without the space).
Shemeska the Marauder
05-03-07, 02:32 AM Regardless of the presence (or lack) of mechanical effects in game terms for a tanar'ri being present in Celestia/Arcadia/Bytopia/etc, since you're writing a story then feel free to go beyond that. As a creature of manifest CE, going to a plane that's a physical embodiment of their metaphysical opposite, it's going to be unsettling at the least, and agonizing at times depending on how long they're there, the precise nature of the plane.

In the case of Celestia since the plane can be considered to be more 'pure' or perhaps more 'intense' as you go to higher layers, a tanar'ri will endure more and more discomfort bordering on pain as it goes higher, assuming that it was capable of getting to those higher layers (and of course it would be incinerated by the attempt to enter Chronias, much as virtually everything else is, including archons themselves who might be seeking to enter before they reach the metaphysical purity required for that transition).
_Random_
05-03-07, 06:42 PM :D Thanks. :D
It would be really embarassing to publish something (I might, I don't know) with the wrong spelling.
Also thanks for anwering my question, it was a real help! :)
This time I'm on a Library computer, it isn't broken. :P
:ton: I have a lot of editing to do! :rolleyes:
Gray Richardson
05-03-07, 08:11 PM Tanar'ri comes from the elven words tanar (cast/throw) and ri (out). When Corellon Larethian overcame Araushnee's rebellion against the Seldarine, he banished her from Arvandor and pronounced her Tanar'ri, or "cast out".

Araushnee and her ilk ended up settling in the Abyss, where Araushnee came to be called Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders. The elven word tanar'ri came to be used by elves to describe not only Lolth, her cohorts and servants, but also generically to demons themselves.

At some point in the last 30,000 years since, the name Tanar'ri was adopted by demons themselves as the name for a particular sub-race of demons, the predominant race in the Abyss.

Some people may argue that it was actually the elves that adopted the name from the Abyssal language. But this seems unlikely due to several reasons: both tanar and ri are separate words in current and common usage in the elven language, while the Abyssal language is a chaotic and variable language, constantly shifting and changing, incorporating words from other languages, and developing new slang. Often demons from different layers have trouble understanding each other's dialect of Abyssal, which is why most demons use telepathy to communicate. Certainly the Abyssal tongue from 30,000 years ago would be incomprehensible to modern speakers, whereas the elven language is somewhat more stable and static. :devil:
_Random_
05-03-07, 11:38 PM Thanks for the History! The story will be much more interesting (to me at least) with this knowledge.
I'll be watching this post for a while, and if anyone wants a summary, say so! The offer stands for about a month (until June...) or until the first person asks.
I wont post the Summary twice.:noway:
Hopefully I can finnish a few more short stories that I have linked to it, and make a book. That would be the first Chapter book that I have writen. I'm workin' on it.
Thanks Again (esp. for the spelling...that would really ruin a good day if I had found out after I got it out.
By the way, anyone know of any publishing companies that publish books for minors? I'd like to know anything possible. :D
Oh, yeah, I have no published books. Just to let you know.
Shemeska the Marauder
05-04-07, 12:08 AM Some people may argue that it was actually the elves that adopted the name from the Abyssal language.

I'd argue precisely that, for several reasons. Why would a race born of manifest chaos and evil adopt a mortal word to describe themselves? Plus the name "tanar'ri" appears in use in The Book of Derelict Magicks, the Skin Manifesto, and the Maeledictus Liberias. I doubt that all of the early sources would have uniformly been rewritten to incorporate a word that's at most 30k years old, when they themselves are more likely measures by orders of magnitude more.

Yes the Abyssal tongue is mutable and dynamic, but who says the tanar'ri created the name for themselves? I find it very likely that the name was created by either yugoloth historians, or more likely by the obyrith creators of the tanar'ri. What better way to make clear that your creations are lesser beings, a race of servitors unworthy to inherit the Abyss than to give them a fixed, solid name and bury that name in their racial consciousness?

The name might have been imposed on them by Pale Night, or one of their other creators, and then kept after the tanar'ri rose to ascendency. What better way then to spite your makers and former masters by keeping the name they had assigned you as a way of keeping you in your place, and then using it as a new title synonymous with yourselves in your new role as lords of that entire plane?

Of course after a period of time that initial reason might have been forgotten, but the name stuck, and the name was in use by dozens of other races, and eventually influenced the elven language after Lolth's expulsion from the Seldarine.

And finally: tanar'ri is not an elven and froofy word. ;)
Gray Richardson
05-04-07, 02:59 PM Why would a race born of manifest chaos and evil adopt a mortal word to describe themselves?1) Because all Tanar'ri are former mortals.

2) Because Tanar'ri have no unifying spoken racial language (see Faces of Evil: the Fiends p.55).

3) Because Tanar'ri primarily communicate telepathically, projecting mental symbols.

4)Fnord

5) In 2E there was no Abyssal language (at least according to Faces of Evil) so Abyssal would seem to be an artifact of 3e, and I know how much you hate retcons... ;)

6) Elven is a more stable language, and due to the longevity of its speakers tends to have less linguistic drift down through the ages.

7) Certainly, many elves have gone to the Abyss over the eons, and not just Drow, but evil elves of every subrace are represented there. Some have gone as deceased souls, but others have had congress with demons and have traveled there. And demons certainly come to the Material Plane to make pacts and do business with elves. There is enough interaction that the elven tongue could have easily influenced certain dialects of Abyssal.

8) The elven tongue is far older than 30,000 years, even though we know that Araushnee fell around 31,000 years ago, give or take, we do not know that Corellon simply invented the word at that time. The word could have been used for many thousands of years previously to refer to either demons or simply people banished from a tribe or group. The term is probably a lot older than just 30,000 years, even though we know it must be at least that old.

9) There are real world Earth cultures that have adopted a name for their group given them by an outside culture, one example I can think of is the American Indians who often use the term Indian to describe themselves, even though they live far from the subcontinent of India.Plus the name "tanar'ri" appears in use in The Book of Derelict Magicks, the Skin Manifesto, and the Maeledictus Liberias. I presume that their written language is something like Chinese, where they write down on paper (or what have you) the same symbols that they project with their mindspeak. As with the many dialects of Chinese, the written symbols would appear to be legible across the dialects, even though the spoken words may be unintelligible between tanar'ri from different layers, social stations, or regions of the Abyss.I doubt that all of the early sources would have uniformly been rewritten to incorporate a word that's at most 30k years old, when they themselves are more likely measures by orders of magnitude more.Agreed, if written Abyssal uses ideograms instead of an alphabet, the symbol itself would not change over time (probably) no matter how it is pronounced or even if they adopt a new name to pronounce for the symbol. Even so, the elves are a very ancient race, and as I mentioned above those words and that name most likely are much older than the 30,000 years since Lolth's fall.Yes the Abyssal tongue is mutable and dynamic, but who says the tanar'ri created the name for themselves?Well... I don't. I say the name was given to them by the elves. So does Stephen Schend, a former TSR editor and a current Realms author. ;) What better way to make clear that your creations are lesser beings, a race of servitors unworthy to inherit the Abyss than to give them a fixed, solid name and bury that name in their racial consciousness?Ha! A myth spread by a detestable and self-aggrandizing race, liars every one of them! Present company excepted, of course ;) If anyone WERE to go back and rewrite all the ancient manuscripts to replace words and retcon their history, it would be the Daemons. But I mean that as a compliment to them that I suspect them capable of such a feat.And finally: tanar'ri is not an elven and froofy word. ;)A joke along the lines of an arcanaloth calling the kettle black would seem appropriate here but I will leave off in deference to my most favorite (and fashionable) fiend in all of Sigil. :angelhide
Shemeska the Marauder
05-04-07, 03:20 PM 1) Because all Tanar'ri are former mortals.

I'll respond to the rest later. However that statement is quite incorrect.

Many tanar'ri are formed from mortal petitioners, which is how Orcus started out. But tanar'ri can breed conventionally even the unique ones (see Graz'zt et al as children of Pale Night, Red Shroud as daughter of Malcanthet, etc), and a small proportion of them form spontaneously from the raw material of the Abyss (which I have a feeling we'll see as being the case for Demogorgon's initial origin before his rise to unique status).
Gray Richardson
05-04-07, 04:29 PM I should not have said "all", I'll grant you that. ;) When I was originally parsing the statement I had considered qualifying it with a "pretty much all", but I thought (wrongly it turns out) that no one would be so nit-picky as to quibble. Even still, the vast majority of Tanar'ri were once mortal souls.

Then again, when tanar'ri form spontaneously from the Abyss, who is to say that the "matter" they are made from is not soul stuff that has been absorbed by the Abyss through the ages? Somehow I doubt that spontaneously-generated tanar'ri get their animating spark from the supply of unborn souls in the Positive Energy Plane. More likely they are formed from excess soul stuff cast off by fiends and creatures that have died in or merged with the Abyss. Likewise, when fiends conceive, I wonder if the animating soul for the child does not come from the Abyss's store of "souler" energy.

I don't think that we can rule out definitively that all tanar'ri may indeed have been formed from the souls of ex-mortals. But this theory is perhaps an exercise in metaphysics that cannot be proved one way or another.
Lady_Mhaor
05-06-07, 08:00 PM But then, Grey, were did the first demons come from when there was nothing but humble chaos?
there was no "soul store" for the abyss to pick from until the gods created mortals to amuse them
Shemeska the Marauder
05-06-07, 09:00 PM But then, Grey, were did the first demons come from when there was nothing but humble chaos?
there was no "soul store" for the abyss to pick from until the gods created mortals to amuse them

Well the first demons (and the other 1st generation NE and LE fiends) predate mortals and gods. The alignments themselves as abstract notions seem to have existed in a primordial state before the formation of the prime material, with the belief of mortals and later the will of gods only modifying the expression but not base nature of those alignment qualia. The alignments, and their first exemplars, seem to be manifestations of part of reality's bedrock itself, without the need to have had mortal souls from elsewhere feeding them. They aren't formed from mortal souls, only fed and empowered by it.
Gray Richardson
05-06-07, 09:30 PM But then, Grey, were did the first demons come from when there was nothing but humble chaos?
there was no "soul store" for the abyss to pick from until the gods created mortals to amuse themWell, my take on it is that the demons are interlopers from Greyhawk's Great Wheel, and that they entered the cosmology and settled among Toril's planes during the War of Light and Darkness between Selūne and Shar at the dawn of time in Realmspace, which Ed Greenwood suggests that Torilian scholars believe to have been around 70,000 years ago. Toril's Abyss would seem to be a clone, or a recreation in whole cloth, or even an avatar of Greyhawk's Abyss (can a plane have an avatar? I think perhaps yes...)

However, if we are talking about Greyhawk's Abyss, the Tanar'ri are only the current rulers. Yes the Tanar'ri (with some exceptions) derive from mortal souls. Prior to that, in very ancient times, the Abyss was ruled by the Obyriths who would seem to be pre-human. I don't know if Obyriths evolved from mortal souls or not. They may still have, but the souls might not have been evolved humans or humanoids, but rather pre-sentient life such as the amassed soul-stuff of crickets, cockroaches, jellyfish, ankylosaurs, glyptodons, lemurs, trilobytes and other ancient life. Or possibly early hominids. Or maybe Obyriths just evolved spontaneously from the primordial chaos.

Even so, I am not so sure the Outer Planes could exist before there was some sort of life on the Material Plane to create those planes with their belief. You posit that the gods created humans (and demi-humans) but some would argue that the gods were the ones brought into existence by the fact of human belief in them. I think the jury is still out on that one. :devil:
MarkusTay63
05-06-07, 11:52 PM You guys... :nonono:

It is a simple coincidence of the universe. No matter the odds against anything occurring, in an infinite universe filled with infinite planes then not only is everything probable, but every single thing you a can possibly imagine does and will happen!

Ancient High Elven:
Tanar="cast", and Ri="out", hence Tanar'Ri means "Outcast"

Abyssal:
Ta="Most", and Narri="Foul", hence Ta'Narri means "Most Foul", which is a term of respect amongst Demons

No need to argue, words are my specialty. ;)
Stigger
05-10-07, 07:30 AM I think I might suggest altering that to "... does, has, and/or will happen, at the very least once."

/nitpick

:D

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
_Random_ 05-02-07, 11:25 PM	Hi, I am writing a short story, and it takes place on the plane of the Tan'nari. I had a few holes in the plane, portals to other places, including the material world. But what happens when a Tan'nari goes to a plane of Lawful Good? Does: He Dissolve? He go into fits of agony? Get thrown into some sort of prizon by the natives (if they are powerful enough)? Does Absolutely* Nothing* happen, other than the transportation from one realm to another? I Really* would like to know the answer. I wonder if Lord Karsus knows? He seems to be popular, if you didn't read the first post I sent out (where I stated that the first time...As if it isn't obvious.) Thank you all for your support! (hopefully* it* is* support) I ussually go overboard with smilies. My computer is probably the problem, but I couldn't use the shortcut editor bar. This sucks! *Italicized
Gray Richardson 05-03-07, 12:52 AM	He suffers strong penalties to his charisma based checks due to the plane being aligned opposite of him on both axes. See Player's Guide to Faerun for more details. Other than that, nothing too bad except for it being a hostile environment. If he drops into the sea of Lunia (the first layer of Mount Celestia on the plane of the House of the Triad) he would take the same damage as if he were immersed in holy water. And everyone who appears in Lunia always materializes over the sea, off-shore, it's a quirk of that layer. However, the celestial planes do not otherwise pose an environmental hazzard per se to fiends who travel them. There may, however, be cultural hazzards. Archons and certain other celestials might slay a fiend on sight--or at least take it in for questioning. The plane is not so much inhospitable to fiends so much as the people who live there.
Zandilar 05-03-07, 01:09 AM	Heya, Not trying to be mean here, but it's spelt Tanar'ri - if you're writing a story, it's best to get the spelling right. ;) To italicize something preface the word with [ i] (obviously without the space) and finish with [ /i] (again without the space).
Shemeska the Marauder 05-03-07, 02:32 AM	Regardless of the presence (or lack) of mechanical effects in game terms for a tanar'ri being present in Celestia/Arcadia/Bytopia/etc, since you're writing a story then feel free to go beyond that. As a creature of manifest CE, going to a plane that's a physical embodiment of their metaphysical opposite, it's going to be unsettling at the least, and agonizing at times depending on how long they're there, the precise nature of the plane. In the case of Celestia since the plane can be considered to be more 'pure' or perhaps more 'intense' as you go to higher layers, a tanar'ri will endure more and more discomfort bordering on pain as it goes higher, assuming that it was capable of getting to those higher layers (and of course it would be incinerated by the attempt to enter Chronias, much as virtually everything else is, including archons themselves who might be seeking to enter before they reach the metaphysical purity required for that transition).
_Random_ 05-03-07, 06:42 PM	:D Thanks. :D It would be really embarassing to publish something (I might, I don't know) with the wrong spelling. Also thanks for anwering my question, it was a real help! :) This time I'm on a Library computer, it isn't broken. :P :ton: I have a lot of editing to do! :rolleyes:
Gray Richardson 05-03-07, 08:11 PM	Tanar'ri comes from the elven words tanar (cast/throw) and ri (out). When Corellon Larethian overcame Araushnee's rebellion against the Seldarine, he banished her from Arvandor and pronounced her Tanar'ri, or "cast out". Araushnee and her ilk ended up settling in the Abyss, where Araushnee came to be called Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders. The elven word tanar'ri came to be used by elves to describe not only Lolth, her cohorts and servants, but also generically to demons themselves. At some point in the last 30,000 years since, the name Tanar'ri was adopted by demons themselves as the name for a particular sub-race of demons, the predominant race in the Abyss. Some people may argue that it was actually the elves that adopted the name from the Abyssal language. But this seems unlikely due to several reasons: both tanar and ri are separate words in current and common usage in the elven language, while the Abyssal language is a chaotic and variable language, constantly shifting and changing, incorporating words from other languages, and developing new slang. Often demons from different layers have trouble understanding each other's dialect of Abyssal, which is why most demons use telepathy to communicate. Certainly the Abyssal tongue from 30,000 years ago would be incomprehensible to modern speakers, whereas the elven language is somewhat more stable and static. :devil:
_Random_ 05-03-07, 11:38 PM	Thanks for the History! The story will be much more interesting (to me at least) with this knowledge. I'll be watching this post for a while, and if anyone wants a summary, say so! The offer stands for about a month (until June...) or until the first person asks. I wont post the Summary twice.:noway: Hopefully I can finnish a few more short stories that I have linked to it, and make a book. That would be the first Chapter book that I have writen. I'm workin' on it. Thanks Again (esp. for the spelling...that would really ruin a good day if I had found out after I got it out. By the way, anyone know of any publishing companies that publish books for minors? I'd like to know anything possible. :D Oh, yeah, I have no published books. Just to let you know.
Shemeska the Marauder 05-04-07, 12:08 AM	Some people may argue that it was actually the elves that adopted the name from the Abyssal language. I'd argue precisely that, for several reasons. Why would a race born of manifest chaos and evil adopt a mortal word to describe themselves? Plus the name "tanar'ri" appears in use in The Book of Derelict Magicks, the Skin Manifesto, and the Maeledictus Liberias. I doubt that all of the early sources would have uniformly been rewritten to incorporate a word that's at most 30k years old, when they themselves are more likely measures by orders of magnitude more. Yes the Abyssal tongue is mutable and dynamic, but who says the tanar'ri created the name for themselves? I find it very likely that the name was created by either yugoloth historians, or more likely by the obyrith creators of the tanar'ri. What better way to make clear that your creations are lesser beings, a race of servitors unworthy to inherit the Abyss than to give them a fixed, solid name and bury that name in their racial consciousness? The name might have been imposed on them by Pale Night, or one of their other creators, and then kept after the tanar'ri rose to ascendency. What better way then to spite your makers and former masters by keeping the name they had assigned you as a way of keeping you in your place, and then using it as a new title synonymous with yourselves in your new role as lords of that entire plane? Of course after a period of time that initial reason might have been forgotten, but the name stuck, and the name was in use by dozens of other races, and eventually influenced the elven language after Lolth's expulsion from the Seldarine. And finally: tanar'ri is not an elven and froofy word. ;)
Gray Richardson 05-04-07, 02:59 PM	Why would a race born of manifest chaos and evil adopt a mortal word to describe themselves?1) Because all Tanar'ri are former mortals. 2) Because Tanar'ri have no unifying spoken racial language (see Faces of Evil: the Fiends p.55). 3) Because Tanar'ri primarily communicate telepathically, projecting mental symbols. 4)Fnord 5) In 2E there was no Abyssal language (at least according to Faces of Evil) so Abyssal would seem to be an artifact of 3e, and I know how much you hate retcons... ;) 6) Elven is a more stable language, and due to the longevity of its speakers tends to have less linguistic drift down through the ages. 7) Certainly, many elves have gone to the Abyss over the eons, and not just Drow, but evil elves of every subrace are represented there. Some have gone as deceased souls, but others have had congress with demons and have traveled there. And demons certainly come to the Material Plane to make pacts and do business with elves. There is enough interaction that the elven tongue could have easily influenced certain dialects of Abyssal. 8) The elven tongue is far older than 30,000 years, even though we know that Araushnee fell around 31,000 years ago, give or take, we do not know that Corellon simply invented the word at that time. The word could have been used for many thousands of years previously to refer to either demons or simply people banished from a tribe or group. The term is probably a lot older than just 30,000 years, even though we know it must be at least that old. 9) There are real world Earth cultures that have adopted a name for their group given them by an outside culture, one example I can think of is the American Indians who often use the term Indian to describe themselves, even though they live far from the subcontinent of India.Plus the name "tanar'ri" appears in use in The Book of Derelict Magicks, the Skin Manifesto, and the Maeledictus Liberias. I presume that their written language is something like Chinese, where they write down on paper (or what have you) the same symbols that they project with their mindspeak. As with the many dialects of Chinese, the written symbols would appear to be legible across the dialects, even though the spoken words may be unintelligible between tanar'ri from different layers, social stations, or regions of the Abyss.I doubt that all of the early sources would have uniformly been rewritten to incorporate a word that's at most 30k years old, when they themselves are more likely measures by orders of magnitude more.Agreed, if written Abyssal uses ideograms instead of an alphabet, the symbol itself would not change over time (probably) no matter how it is pronounced or even if they adopt a new name to pronounce for the symbol. Even so, the elves are a very ancient race, and as I mentioned above those words and that name most likely are much older than the 30,000 years since Lolth's fall.Yes the Abyssal tongue is mutable and dynamic, but who says the tanar'ri created the name for themselves?Well... I don't. I say the name was given to them by the elves. So does Stephen Schend, a former TSR editor and a current Realms author. ;) What better way to make clear that your creations are lesser beings, a race of servitors unworthy to inherit the Abyss than to give them a fixed, solid name and bury that name in their racial consciousness?Ha! A myth spread by a detestable and self-aggrandizing race, liars every one of them! Present company excepted, of course ;) If anyone WERE to go back and rewrite all the ancient manuscripts to replace words and retcon their history, it would be the Daemons. But I mean that as a compliment to them that I suspect them capable of such a feat.And finally: tanar'ri is not an elven and froofy word. ;)A joke along the lines of an arcanaloth calling the kettle black would seem appropriate here but I will leave off in deference to my most favorite (and fashionable) fiend in all of Sigil. :angelhide
Shemeska the Marauder 05-04-07, 03:20 PM	1) Because all Tanar'ri are former mortals. I'll respond to the rest later. However that statement is quite incorrect. Many tanar'ri are formed from mortal petitioners, which is how Orcus started out. But tanar'ri can breed conventionally even the unique ones (see Graz'zt et al as children of Pale Night, Red Shroud as daughter of Malcanthet, etc), and a small proportion of them form spontaneously from the raw material of the Abyss (which I have a feeling we'll see as being the case for Demogorgon's initial origin before his rise to unique status).
Gray Richardson 05-04-07, 04:29 PM	I should not have said "all", I'll grant you that. ;) When I was originally parsing the statement I had considered qualifying it with a "pretty much all", but I thought (wrongly it turns out) that no one would be so nit-picky as to quibble. Even still, the vast majority of Tanar'ri were once mortal souls. Then again, when tanar'ri form spontaneously from the Abyss, who is to say that the "matter" they are made from is not soul stuff that has been absorbed by the Abyss through the ages? Somehow I doubt that spontaneously-generated tanar'ri get their animating spark from the supply of unborn souls in the Positive Energy Plane. More likely they are formed from excess soul stuff cast off by fiends and creatures that have died in or merged with the Abyss. Likewise, when fiends conceive, I wonder if the animating soul for the child does not come from the Abyss's store of "souler" energy. I don't think that we can rule out definitively that all tanar'ri may indeed have been formed from the souls of ex-mortals. But this theory is perhaps an exercise in metaphysics that cannot be proved one way or another.
Lady_Mhaor 05-06-07, 08:00 PM	But then, Grey, were did the first demons come from when there was nothing but humble chaos? there was no "soul store" for the abyss to pick from until the gods created mortals to amuse them
Shemeska the Marauder 05-06-07, 09:00 PM	But then, Grey, were did the first demons come from when there was nothing but humble chaos? there was no "soul store" for the abyss to pick from until the gods created mortals to amuse them Well the first demons (and the other 1st generation NE and LE fiends) predate mortals and gods. The alignments themselves as abstract notions seem to have existed in a primordial state before the formation of the prime material, with the belief of mortals and later the will of gods only modifying the expression but not base nature of those alignment qualia. The alignments, and their first exemplars, seem to be manifestations of part of reality's bedrock itself, without the need to have had mortal souls from elsewhere feeding them. They aren't formed from mortal souls, only fed and empowered by it.
Gray Richardson 05-06-07, 09:30 PM	But then, Grey, were did the first demons come from when there was nothing but humble chaos? there was no "soul store" for the abyss to pick from until the gods created mortals to amuse themWell, my take on it is that the demons are interlopers from Greyhawk's Great Wheel, and that they entered the cosmology and settled among Toril's planes during the War of Light and Darkness between Selūne and Shar at the dawn of time in Realmspace, which Ed Greenwood suggests that Torilian scholars believe to have been around 70,000 years ago. Toril's Abyss would seem to be a clone, or a recreation in whole cloth, or even an avatar of Greyhawk's Abyss (can a plane have an avatar? I think perhaps yes...) However, if we are talking about Greyhawk's Abyss, the Tanar'ri are only the current rulers. Yes the Tanar'ri (with some exceptions) derive from mortal souls. Prior to that, in very ancient times, the Abyss was ruled by the Obyriths who would seem to be pre-human. I don't know if Obyriths evolved from mortal souls or not. They may still have, but the souls might not have been evolved humans or humanoids, but rather pre-sentient life such as the amassed soul-stuff of crickets, cockroaches, jellyfish, ankylosaurs, glyptodons, lemurs, trilobytes and other ancient life. Or possibly early hominids. Or maybe Obyriths just evolved spontaneously from the primordial chaos. Even so, I am not so sure the Outer Planes could exist before there was some sort of life on the Material Plane to create those planes with their belief. You posit that the gods created humans (and demi-humans) but some would argue that the gods were the ones brought into existence by the fact of human belief in them. I think the jury is still out on that one. :devil:
MarkusTay63 05-06-07, 11:52 PM	You guys... :nonono: It is a simple coincidence of the universe. No matter the odds against anything occurring, in an infinite universe filled with infinite planes then not only is everything probable, but every single thing you a can possibly imagine does and will happen! Ancient High Elven: Tanar="cast", and Ri="out", hence Tanar'Ri means "Outcast" Abyssal: Ta="Most", and Narri="Foul", hence Ta'Narri means "Most Foul", which is a term of respect amongst Demons No need to argue, words are my specialty. ;)
Stigger 05-10-07, 07:30 AM	I think I might suggest altering that to "... does, has, and/or will happen, at the very least once." /nitpick :D