Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DemonDragonJ 12-28-04, 10:50 AM	Why are the Yugoloths (who embody neutral evil) not as well-known as the Devils (who embody lawful evil) and Demons (who embody chaotic evil)? Because the Guardinals (who embody neutral good) are just as well-known as the archons (who embody lawful good) and the Eladrins (who embody chaotic good). Why are there so many more varieties of fiends, particularly demons, than there are of celestials? Are there balrogs (like the one from Lord of the Rings) in D&D? Are there Cherubim and Seraphim (the two highest ranks of angels) within D&D? Are there any prestige classes designed for celestials, the way that there are prestige classes designed for fiends in the "Field Folio?"
Talisman 12-28-04, 11:45 AM	1) I believe this is because WotC wanted to emphasize the more extreme alignments (LG, LE, CG, CE) at the expense of the neutral alignments. The Guardinals remain well-known because the focus of any adventure is on the PCs, who are good more often than not, and good PC clerics need servants of their deity to call upon or otherwise interact with. 2) Because PCs, being good (usually), are more likely to fight with evil creatures than with good ones, and this gives them more high-powered foes. 3) Not under that name, but the Balor demons are a pretty good match. 4) No; the closest equivalent are the Solars (most powerful angels) and Planetars (second-most powerful angels). 5) I think several of the PrCs in the Book of Exalted Deeds fit celestials quite well, but I don't own the book and can't quote any specifics.
ArchmageCZ 12-28-04, 11:53 AM	To make a balrog, simply advance a Balor to a huge or collosal creature.
CzarGarrett 12-28-04, 12:38 PM	To make a balrog, simply advance a Balor to a huge or collosal creature. And I'd be tempted to add some sort of Shadow or Umbral and half Fire Elemental templates as well. And as to #2, there's a lot of demons because by nature, demons are so chaotic that very few of them are alike. There's the Tanari, but you can have ten dozen different types of demons otherwise.
Mr.Black 12-28-04, 04:25 PM	Perhaps yugoloths are not well known because they don't have a traditional name like "demon" or "devil." Balors are like balrogs, except balors can use their wings to fly.
Melpomene 12-28-04, 04:33 PM	More celestials are presented in the BoED, including higher-ranking celestials such as Throne Archons. The CD has a few PrCs that just beg for a deva to sign up on, and most celestials do well with a few class levels tossed in for good measure. Remeber, there is only one type of human.
Slagger the Chuul 12-29-04, 06:24 AM	And hundreds of varieties of elf. :) I agree that the yugoloths have a poor name. It makes them sound like a subspecies of the devils or demons, but most of the good names are taken.
Shemeska the Marauder 12-29-04, 10:46 AM	Why are the Yugoloths (who embody neutral evil) not as well-known as the Devils (who embody lawful evil) and Demons (who embody chaotic evil)? Because the Guardinals (who embody neutral good) are just as well-known as the archons (who embody lawful good) and the Eladrins (who embody chaotic good). They are, just they haven't been detailed as much in 3e. 2nd ed Planescape went crazy-go-nuts with Yugoloths and details on them, and we've only gotten a fraction of that material directly ported over into the latest books. If you're curious about the 'loths I suggest the following books, "Faces of Evil: The Fiends", "Hellbound: The Blood War", "Planescape Monstrous Compendium I + II", "Planes of Conflict". In summary: 1) The Yugoloths are the oldest of the fiendish races. 2) The Yugoloths created the Baatezu and Tanar'ri as a side effect of their own race being purged of law and chaos (which was shunted into the first larvae to appear on the Gray Waste. They herded those infused with law to Baator where they developed into the Baatezu and overthrew the Ancient Baatorians. Those infused with chaos were herded to the Abyss and became the Tanar'ri). 3) The Yugoloths are the primary movers of the Blood War; they control it so that it will never end. They view the Blood War as an experiment into the nature of evil, and take obsessive observations and notes regarding its ebb and flow. 4) The Yugoloths have the most exact records and histories of the lower planes of any of the fiendish races. 5) The Yugoloths were themselves created by their own progenitors, the Baernaloths, who themselves were the chosen species of abstract evil as a concept, created immediately after the outer planes took form from nothingness. http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/Baernaloth1 6) The Demodands/Gehreleths were created in flawed mockery of the Yugoloths by a renegade Baernaloth named Apomps the Triple Aspected (now something between a Baernaloth and a quasi-deity at the center of Agathys in Carceri) 7) The teleportation ability of all of the other fiends is granted to them by a being known as the Maeldur et Kavurik, one of the first Solars who was corrupted by a Baernaloth by the name of Daru ib Shamiq. The 'loths can remove this ability at their whim... likely it would be used as leverage whenever the 'loth feel the desire to end the Blood War with a united lower planes under their thumbs. 8) The first Baatezu and Tanar'ri may have been implanted with subtle instructions that will have their race be beholden to their creators when the 'loths end the Blood War. 9) Yugoloths lie. Except when they don't... :devil: Why are there so many more varieties of fiends, particularly demons, than there are of celestials? The Blood War. Conflict, active conflict, breeds variety and ingenuity. In this case it has led to more fiendish subtypes. The Tanar'ri of course will attempt to crossbreed with anything more or less to create more subtypes, plus simply the chaotic essence of their race will make it happen anyways. Oddly enough the Yugoloths are more firmly regimented in their subtypes and progression from type to type, mezzoloth to Ultroloth, even more so than the LE Baatezu. The 'loths see themselves in many ways as perfected already by their creators. If the celestials took an active hand in the Blood War (which they haven't since the very early days of the War when they suffered horrific defeat) they'd have more and more subtypes too most likely. However they stay largely out of direct involvement for fear of presenting the fiends with a larger threat than each other and risking the lower planes uniting against the upper planes.
Wayward Son 01-03-05, 10:17 AM	Why are the Yugoloths less well-known than the Baatezu and Tanar'ri? I imagine it's because they prefer it that way. :schemes: After all, it's much easier to remain in the background and manipulate the lower planes if few know you even exist, let alone your motives and methods. As was mentioned, the info is out there from previous editions, but 3.X hasn't dealt much with them other than to post their stats in the various monster books. As a DM, this gives you a valuable tool: creative license. Since there is so little published about these beings in this edition, you have plenty of room to fit them into your campaign in whatever way you desire.
ShinQuickMan 01-03-05, 11:00 AM	3) Not under that name, but the Balor demons are a pretty good match. Yeah, but the Balors are obviously overpowered versions of Balrogs.
Melpomene 01-03-05, 11:07 AM	Just as an aside as to why there are more fiends than celestials, there are more ways to do evil than good. You (the universal you) can think all day of creative ways to infect evil upon the world, but try to think of a way of doing good that isn't simply "opposing evil."
ShinQuickMan 01-03-05, 11:48 AM	Just as an aside as to why there are more fiends than celestials, there are more ways to do evil than good. You (the universal you) can think all day of creative ways to infect evil upon the world, but try to think of a way of doing good that isn't simply "opposing evil." You're right in that their are more ways to do evil than good. However, that doesn't really help the fact their are more fiends than celestials. After all, MOST demons and devils just stand out in sheer power (magical or otherwise) and appearance, not on how they perform their evil.
Talisman 01-03-05, 12:49 PM	Yeah, but the Balors are obviously overpowered versions of Balrogs. As a student of Tolkien I will vigorously debate this point with you. In all of Middle-earth there were only seven (!) Balrogs, ever. Except when they fought the Valar (demi-gods or better), every Balrog to die took his enemy with him. This includes Gandalf, an angelic spirit in mortal form, and probably the equivalent of a 20th-level half-celestial wizard in D&D terms. If anything, Balors are underpowered compared to true Balrogs. Oh, BTW, Balrogs averaged about 12' in height.
Shemeska the Marauder 01-03-05, 04:26 PM	As a student of Tolkien I will vigorously debate this point with you. In all of Middle-earth there were only seven (!) Balrogs, ever. Except when they fought the Valar (demi-gods or better), every Balrog to die took his enemy with him. This includes Gandalf, an angelic spirit in mortal form, and probably the equivalent of a 20th-level half-celestial wizard in D&D terms. You'd probably know better than I would then, but weren't Tolkein's Balrogs direct servitors of Morgoth, and on a level of power a step above that of Sauron (as Sauron originally existed at least). Sure, Gygax had Balors originally exist as Balrogs till the Tolkein estate threatened legal action (also why Halflings are no longer named hobbits), but anymore it's just a superficial resemblance. The Balors of the Tanar'ri have since come into their own given the material written for them, and their race in general, in some of the Planescape material (only a portion of which has filtered down into the 3e material).
Cosmosis 01-03-05, 06:37 PM	The simplest reason I can think of as to why the yugoloths aren't more notorious is that they weren't in the 3E MM. Also, I mean no offense to Shemeska and the thousands of other 'loth fans on these boards (as I know that their wrath is swift and terrible), but the majority of what I've heard about yugoloths' reputation seems to portray them as lawful evil, including points 3, 4, 7, and 8 in Shemeska's post.
Freefall 01-04-05, 04:17 AM	A Balor is CR 20 now. That means one should provide a reasonable challenge for a group of 4 20th level PCs, and could probably slaughter any individual 20th level PC (unless he was glaringly min-maxed or had a bunch of templates or something). Even if you take Gandalf as a 20th level wizard/sorcerer half-celestial, he just barely defeated the Balrog, so the thing would probably be about CR 20 or maybe a little less. Of course, this is not considering that Gandalf, to my knowledge, never makes a display of power that would actually suggest that he is the equivalent of a 20th level wizard. In fact, I think I remember hearing about an article back in the day that argued that he actually never demonstrated any abilities beyond the capabilities of a 5th level magic-user (or therabouts). Um, back on topic. I think this was already mentioned, but the place to look for Yugoloths is Planescape, which is fortunately pretty cheap if you buy the PDFs. Of course, the problem there (at least in my opinion) is that PS goes a bit overboard on their influence and power, to the point of making the Tanar'ri and even the manipulative Baatezu look like chumps and puppets, which I just found irritating. In 3E they probably aren't mentioned much in large part because they aren't in the core Monster Manual. Every other race of exemplars has some representatives in there except the Yugoloths (Modrons don't count, since they seem to be officially extinct). Not being in the core books tends to make MotC feel much less inclined to mention them in other books. Don't know why they aren't included there at all, since they are certainly an exemplar race, though I am kind of glad that they now give the Baatezu and Tanar'ri a little breathing room and a chance to be evil in their own right instead of just a Yugoloth experiment.
CzarGarrett 01-04-05, 08:17 AM	You'd probably know better than I would then, but weren't Tolkein's Balrogs direct servitors of Morgoth, and on a level of power a step above that of Sauron (as Sauron originally existed at least). As they originally existed, at least by the information in the History of Middle Earth series, they would have been equal. Sauron, Balrogs, Gandalf, Saurman- they were all Maia originally. Balrogs were Maia corrupted into shapes of fire and shadow, while Sauron was a Maia corrupted with sorcerery and shapeshifting abilities.
Triel 01-04-05, 01:14 PM	I believe there are more fiends for a number of reasons. The primary one being that in most campaigns the players are the heroes and are primarily good (or at least neutral) and thus their opposition is evil. The epitome of evil in D&D has always focused on fiends, undead and a few others known as being irredeemably evil and thus easily labeled as the bad guys. The Abyss is infinite so if there were but one demon on each of it's planes then that would equate to an infinite number of demons. Given that the plane is chaotic I would say that this may have an effect in spawning so many different breeds of demons. The baatezu/devils locked in an internal war with demons may have turned to other means of making certain surprises to use against their demonic foes. Twisting the souls of evil beings, other devils and what not they could have begun creating new terrors that after millenia have grown into numbers large enough to be a new species breed to serve in the war against demons or mankind. I can't remember the exact 2nd edition book but there was a passage in there that had stated that the celestrials knew that if both demons and devils aligned with one another that they could conquer the heavens. There was even a Planescape adventure where a celestrial was selling arms to both sides in the Blood War to keep the war going and thus distract demons/devils from the heavens. Perhaps the yugoloths use similiar techniques as the devils (or sell their techniques to both demon and devil alike) in manufacturing new creations. It would keep their mercenary services in the Blood War secure so that their own abilities wouldn't get outstripped by the sides that they are manipulating. Such techniques could be excruitiatingly painful or down right evil requiring sacrifices or the like and thus would be abhorent to celestrials and thus the reason why there are fewer such creatures on the upper planes since they don't use such techniques. Also, good aligned creation deities could simply form new breeds of celestrials as needed but as of yet haven't had any reason or need to do so. Just a few suggested possibilities.
Ogre4Hire 01-04-05, 02:22 PM	Yeah, the Yugoloths try to make sure they've got their poisoned claws in everything that happens in the Blood War. Or they try to make sure that everyone else thinks they do, which pretty much amounts to the same thing for their purposes. I think that there's probably a lot more celestial creatures on the Upper Planes than anyone else realizes, it's just that they don't throw their weight around the same way as the Fiends do, so we don't see them.
Shemeska the Marauder 01-04-05, 03:19 PM	I can't remember the exact 2nd edition book but there was a passage in there that had stated that the celestrials knew that if both demons and devils aligned with one another that they could conquer the heavens. There was even a Planescape adventure where a celestrial was selling arms to both sides in the Blood War to keep the war going and thus distract demons/devils from the heavens. 'Hellbound: The Blood War' was it for both of them. The adventure revolved around an Aasimar arms merchant and minor Golden Lord of Sigil by the name of Spiral Hal'Oight (grandson of the Trumpet Archon Zalatian the 23rd). Spiral's arms dealing to the Tanar'ri and Baatezu gained him the attention of the Yugoloths and in the end, the 'loths gained a hand in Spiral's distribution of weapons. Essentially the 'loths didn't appreciate anyone else having an input into the ebb and flow of the War Eternal, and they threatened to inform Spiral's clients that he was selling to both sides, and they also threatened to intercept his shipments and pass off inferior/sabotaged goods to the buyers and place the blame on Spiral. Spiral acquiesced and allowed an unnamed Ultroloth to serve as a middleman between Spiral's sales and the ultimate recipients of the arms. For what it's worth, Zalatian the 23rd fell from grace as a result of the matter and was stripped of his position in Celestia. He later reappeared as a fallen celestial in the 3e module 'Lord of the Iron Fortress'. Poor zalatian http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/shemmywink.gif Perhaps the yugoloths use similiar techniques as the devils (or sell their techniques to both demon and devil alike) in manufacturing new creations. It would keep their mercenary services in the Blood War secure so that their own abilities wouldn't get outstripped by the sides that they are manipulating. The one thing the 'loths have going for them is that their numbers seem incapable of going down. The moment one of the them is killed, one of their native planes (Gehenna or the Waste, possibly Carceri) will simply belch forth a new mezzoloth. 'Kill all you want, we'll make more' sort of thing. Plus they can breed, though it's not their preferred method of making more of themselves. This stands in contrast to the Tanar'ri who breed like fiendish bunnies and warp petitioners to make more of themselves, or the Baatezu who rely almost exclusively on petitioners to create more of themselves (female Baatezu are sterile). The 'loths have no need for mortal souls to replenish their ranks, something their creations can't say. Technically, almost overnight after one of the two sides in the Blood War discovered how to warp petitioners/larvae into least Tanar'ri or Baatezu, the Yugoloths passed on the knowledge of how to do so to the other side in order to keep the War balanced. Oddly enough the 'loths don't create many more varieties of themselves... ever... their self experimentation seems limited to the creation of lesser Yugoloths from mezzoloths (such as canoloths or skerroloths). Guardian Yugoloths are themselves almost magically forged living constructs than actual yugoloths. The greater yugoloths see themselves as the epitome of evil, perfect beings created by the chosen primordial vessels of neutral evil (the Baernaloths). That level of self-assured species bigotry almost precludes their attempting to improve on what they take as gospel to have been perfect in the first place. 'sides... I should know, I'm perfect. http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/shemmywink.gif
Triel 01-04-05, 04:51 PM	Thanks Shemeska. I'm a big Planescape nut myself but unfortunately all my 2nd edition books are still in the States after my international move and thus I'm unable to consult any of them :weep: They're still packed up, ready to ship as they've been for the last 3 years or so now and thus haven't been able to brush up in quit some time. Didn't want to make exact quotes either without being 100% certain of the source.
Dackad 01-05-05, 07:15 PM	Why are the Yugoloths (who embody neutral evil) not as well-known as the Devils (who embody lawful evil) and Demons (who embody chaotic evil)? Because the Guardinals (who embody neutral good) are just as well-known as the archons (who embody lawful good) and the Eladrins (who embody chaotic good). Yugoloths got their (big) time in the spot-light during Planescape. I think that Talisman is right, the extreme alignments are stressed over the middle alignments. Notice how the Leonine Guardinals (the toughest guardinal type in 3e and 2e aside from the Seven Companions) are pitifully weak compared to the Throne Archons, Solars, Pit Fiends, Tulani Eladrin, and Balors. Also notice how the MMIII Ultroloth is in roughly the same powerlevel as the Leonine Guardinal (read: Ridiculously weak). In Planescape, the focus was more on the Yugoloths (they controlled everything, they created the fiends, they had their grubby paws in everything, they were master manipulators, blah blah blah, overexposure, overexposure), but now the focus has shifted back to the Law-Chaos arc (as it was back in the olden days of D&D). Why are there so many more varieties of fiends, particularly demons, than there are of celestials? Because the base D&D assumption is that the PC's will be goody-two-shoes and will most likely be fighting pure evil than good. ;) Are there balrogs (like the one from Lord of the Rings) in D&D? As was said, balors used to be balrogs until the Tolkien Estate got its undies in a bunch and tried to sue. Thus, balrogs became balors and hobbits became halflings. :) Are there Cherubim and Seraphim (the two highest ranks of angels) within D&D? Not in standard D&D, but check out the 3rd-party accessory Anger of Angels. It takes a more 'traditional' view of angels and celestials. I believe that Malhavoc prints the book. Are there any prestige classes designed for celestials, the way that there are prestige classes designed for fiends in the "Field Folio?" Not really, though there was an issue of Dragon that had some PrC's that focused slightly on the celestials.