However I see in Shavarath it has demons fighting the 3.x war against devils (with some archons thrown in for good measure). So were the ones who ruled in the Age of Demons a splinter group? If so, what's to stop yet another splinter group from invading Eberron and bolstering the ranks of those in the Demon Wastes? If nothing, then that sort of lessens the importance of the Silver Flame, doesn't it?
The 'demons' of the Prime Material Plane, the ones from the Age of Demons, tend to be (in third edition ruleset) any evil natural Outsider. Rakshasa, Night Hags and the like, not actual Demons by type, but fiends none the less.
Demons (as a type) can be found on Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead (Nalfeshnee), Fernia, The Sea of Fire (Balor), Shavarath, The Battleground (Babau, dretch, glabrezu, hezrou, marilith, quasit, retriever).
So if they don't share a common origin, what makes them all 'demons'?
Well remember that in Eberron the Planes often represent metaphysical concepts and the creatures that inhabit these planes are said concepts made flesh. Many of these planes have very nasty aspects to the concepts they embody, very destructive evil concepts. Fire put to an evil use like torture is why things like Pit Fiends (Devil) exist... but the raging inferno that burns down an entire city and half the country side is what gives rise to the chaotic evil Balors (demons).
Of course you could get into a whole chicken or the egg thing what came first? Horrors of the battlefield give rise to demons, or does the savagry of the demons on Shavarath give rise to the horrors of war... but meh.
Demons from differnt planes likely would have little to do with one another, they're chaotic evil aspects of fundimentally different concepts of reality. However occationally one might end up on another plane. Keith has a article in Dragon Magazine on the Lords of Dust that had some Planar devils and demons that had ended up on Eberron proper who've linked up with the Rakshasa... it happens.
I am very hopeful that the terminology is something that will be cleared up and standardized in 4E Eberron.
On most of the planes. Don't get hooked up on the Demon Type. Eberron handles things a bit different from regular D&D. Demons are not a cohecieve unit... neither are devils for that matter.
The 'demons' of the Prime Material Plane, the ones from the Age of Demons, tend to be (in third edition ruleset) any evil natural Outsider. Rakshasa, Night Hags and the like, not actual Demons by type, but fiends none the less.
Demons (as a type) can be found on Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead (Nalfeshnee), Fernia, The Sea of Fire (Balor), Shavarath, The Battleground (Babau, dretch, glabrezu, hezrou, marilith, quasit, retriever).
So if they don't share a common origin, what makes them all 'demons'?
Well remember that in Eberron the Planes often represent metaphysical concepts and the creatures that inhabit these planes are said concepts made flesh. Many of these planes have very nasty aspects to the concepts they embody, very destructive evil concepts. Fire put to an evil use like torture is why things like Pit Fiends (Devil) exist... but the raging inferno that burns down an entire city and half the country side is what gives rise to the chaotic evil Balors (demons).
Of course you could get into a whole chicken or the egg thing what came first? Horrors of the battlefield give rise to demons, or does the savagry of the demons on Shavarath give rise to the horrors of war... but meh.
Demons from differnt planes likely would have little to do with one another, they're chaotic evil aspects of fundimentally different concepts of reality. However occationally one might end up on another plane. Keith has a article in Dragon Magazine on the Lords of Dust that had some Planar devils and demons that had ended up on Eberron proper who've linked up with the Rakshasa... it happens.
Actually, different species not having anything to do with each other is incorrect. In Dragon, one Rajah's lead follower is a Balor (or it might have been a Pit Fiend). Either way, all species of demons and devils are the same both as Khyber's children and as the demons and devils of other planes from what I understand.
There's a side bar talking about exiled fiends from other planes.
Over the course of millennia a number of fiends have been banished from their home planes or chosen to leave, and most of these orphans eventually find their way to the Lords of Dust.
No where does it imply an implicit kinship. In fact the fact that they're refered to as orphaned from their home plane implies the opposite of kinship with the fiends of Khyber.
do you a link to the article
The issue is available in PDF form (with all the articles isolated) for $4.95 at the Paizo site.
No two cents on the subject Keith?
Nothing I haven't said already on other threads, which you've largely summed up in your long post (I remember when I first wrote that pit-fiend-is-fire-as-torture-Balor-is-wildfire explanation). I will note that if you believe the legend of the progenitors, the progenitors created ALL of the planes. As such, the devils and demons of Shavarath can both be seen as children of Khyber - just children of Khyber before the creation of the material plane. But that doesn't mean that they feel any sense of connection to one another.
As such, what I've suggested in the past is that you could find a Vrock that's a native outsider found in Khyber or the Demon Wastes - but it's just that, a native outsider with no connection to the fiends of Shavarath.. Or you could have someone like Thelestes, a fiend who has come to Eberron for reasons of her own. But by and large, there's little traffic between Shavarath and Eberron, and no innate connection between the devil of Shavarath and the devil of Fernia - and I've discussed the reasons for this at great length elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that.
It all seems rather confusing. I'm thinking that there's a good chance it will get tidied up/streamlined in the 4e Ebeerron books, so that we don't have unrelated demons in 4 different planes. But instead have more unique creatures in the various planes.I've discussed the reasons for this at great length elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that.
If anyone has a link to these posts I'd certainly be interested in having a look
Being new I've missed out on all these past discusssions.If anyone has a link to these posts I'd certainly be interested in having a look
Same here. I am very interested in this discussion for a campaign I am running; I have been trying to figure out what to do about the Demons and Devils split in 4E and so I would like all the background info I can get.
I am still confused, personally... maybe Keith's old posts would help. I tried a search but didn't get them.
It helped ease up the thematics of the rules, but with 4e I'm re-evaluating (and waiting for 4e ECS to hopefully clarifying) the system. For now my players know that nasties exist out there, but fiend is fiend in their books.
Personally under 3.5e I lumped NE and LE outsiders (along with evil native outsiders) into the Fiends of Khyber bucket. So that means Devils, Rakshasa, Night Hags and co. The CE and some NE fiends I had put in the "representatives of the Dark Six" bucket. Which meant that Demons, Loumara and Obyriths were the fiends who "served" the Dark Six and were summoned (typically from Shavarath) when a cultists wanted an emissary of the Dark Six to serve them.
It helped ease up the thematics of the rules, but with 4e I'm re-evaluating (and waiting for 4e ECS to hopefully clarifying) the system. For now my players know that nasties exist out there, but fiend is fiend in their books.
I like the idea of that system a lot, actually. It seems like it should still work for 4E, yes?
I am for whatever reason a little unsatisfied by the alternative suggestion that the same type of demon could be associated with being "born" (so to speak) on/in Khyber and on another plane. I understand the idea that the planes are also created and populated by the Creator Dragons but it still seems the two should be somehow different.
P.S. - Thank you for the link to the Archives thread, Nived! I will look at that.
I am for whatever reason a little unsatisfied by the alternative suggestion that the same type of demon could be associated with being "born" (so to speak) on/in Khyber and on another plane.
It's all a question of how you look at demons, devils, and their planes.
If you consider devils to be a race like humans or orcs, and planes to be essentially like continents or planets, then it may seem odd that you find a lone devil in Fernia with no ties to the devils in Shavarath, or that you could find another devil in the Demon Wastes.
In my opinion, the outer planes are nothing like the material plane, and their immortal inhabitants are nothing like mortal beings. The planes encompass raw ideas, and their inhabitants are embodiments of those ideas. But those ideas cover a broad spectrum. Fire can be terrifying. It can be a tool of salvation, and it can be a tool of destruction. When these three concepts are made manifest, they are fundamentally different spirits. Under 3E, the devil is a spirit of law and evil, while the demon is a spirit of chaos and evil. Now combine that with the essence of the plane that spawns it. So in Fernia, the devil is the lawful evil embodiment of fire - so again, the controlled use of fire as a tool of destruction or torment. While the demon of Fernia embodies the sheer, chaotic terror of fire - the destructive, uncontrolled force that can ravage cities.
Meanwhile, in Fernia, you're dealing with spirits of law, chaos, good, and evil - but beyond all of that, you are dealing with spirits of WAR. IMO, the devil of Shavarath has more in common with the demon of Shavarath than the devil of Fernia - become both fiends of Shavarath are fundamental expressions of war, and this is their driving passion. The devils are forces of tyranny and oppression, war as a tool of law and evil, while demons are spirits of bloodthirsty carnage and the chaos of battle. But they are both incarnations of war.
The material plane is where all these ideas merge together. Thus, when you encounter a Vrock in Khyber, it isn't a spirit of war, fire, or what have you: it is an incarnation of (lawful or chaotic) evil, touched by all those things but not bound to any of them. In some ways, this leaves the Khyber fiends room to be the purest incarnations of evil in the multiverse, because they have no other driving passion (As a side note, in my opinion an approriate knowledge check will let you recognize the difference between a native fiend and an extraplanar fiend of a similar type; as an incarnation of war, the Shavarath vrock will be visually different from its Khyberian cousin. Its wings carry the bloodstains of a thousand years of war, its claws are forged from pitted iron, and so on).
The fact that all devils share mechanical traits is simply part of how the universe works; it doesn't actually mean that they're cousins or anything like that (among other things, immortal spirits don't reproduce). And there are variations; the lawful evil fiends of Dal Quor are quori as opposed to devils, and lawful evil fiends could turn up as rakshasa. But they're still incarnate ideas, not biological entities - and "species" has a different meaning for them than it does for us.
Obviously some things have changed in 4E, and that's not something I can speak to at this time. And obviously all of this is just MY philosophy - doesn't mean you have to use it. But that's the principle behind the scattered outsiders. Fire can be good or evil; war can be good or evil; and so there are demons, devils, and benevolent spirits in all of these planes.
It still seems just a little off to me, probably because I am stuck in my "prime material" way of thinking. I keep thinking, "If these fiends were born in Khyber and are the pure expressions of evil, why aren't they different? Like, Yugaloths or something?"
Of course, there's no reason they necessarily should. As you say, if their "species" is essentially "ideas" (which is a really cool idea the more I think about it), then it makes sense for fiends of similar ideas to take similar physical forms no matter what part of the universe they were "born" in. That would suggest that each devil and demon in the MM maps to a certain idea "species" (like the balrok and the pit fiend), and then they look different depending on their natural environment/where they were "born" (as suggested by the vrock fluff changes).
I guess where I get lost is then that the Khyber vrock doesn't represent his idea "species" but instead is a conglomerate of all of them; I am back to, "Why is he a vrock?" But I am a Clueless Prime; the best explanation in Planescape was always "No one knows; here are 20 reasons it could work that way...."
That's all very interesting stuff. I am going to look at that Well of Demons encounter in H2 again and think about it more. Thanks!
P.S. - Are the rajas special? Do they also map to certain ideas? Maybe they are the "kings" of their ideas? That sounds vaguely similar to what I remember reading about Tiamat. Man, this makes me want to start entirely new campaigns!
P.S. - Are the rajas special? Do they also map to certain ideas? Maybe they are the "kings" of their ideas? That sounds vaguely similar to what I remember reading about Tiamat. Man, this makes me want to start entirely new campaigns!
The rajahs are the closest things to deities Eberron has. While not having divine ranks, they have the abilities of a creature with (somewhere around 10) divine ranks. The only things that are/were stronger than them are the great dragons Khyber, Eberron, and Syberis. Their CRs, if calculateable, are around 50-70.
P.S. - Are the rajas special? Do they also map to certain ideas? Maybe they are the "kings" of their ideas?
Essentially so. Tiamat is the evil that lies in the heart of dragons. Rak Tulkhesh is the Rage of War, embodying the ideas of war and hatred. Eldrantulku is the lord of corruption and trickery. This is discussed in greater length in the article Eternal Evil, in Dragon #337.
Essentially so. Tiamat is the evil that lies in the heart of dragons. Rak Tulkhesh is the Rage of War, embodying the ideas of war and hatred. Eldrantulku is the lord of corruption and trickery. This is discussed in greater length in the article Eternal Evil, in Dragon #337.
Excellent, thanks for the link! I am going to buy that and read it this weekend.