Two points:
[spoiler]I was expecting the soul selling thing to be completely subverted so I don’t know if it’s going to continue. Changing up the status quo for all of the characters for their reunion is very possible.
Second… “adopted children”. As if Vaarsuvius’s gender wasn’t ambiguous enough. Although the imp does use “mister” and “sir”…[/spoiler]
In Burlew’s Origin of the PCs, V makes a comment about being in diapers for decades, or something to that effect. Burlew goes for the funny over going for the obscure rules-lawyer ruling.
Daniel
632 is up. The names are lampshaded. But I don’t get the joke and the GITP forum is down.
Apparently, the joke is:
LEe = Lawful Evil, devil
NEro = Neutral Evil, daemon
CEdric = Chaotic Evil, demon
I’m personally thinking that they’re not after V’s soul, but instead after the Snarl/Gates, and will be bargaining for V to betray the Order of the Stick at the appropriate, climactic point. (Since these are Sabine’s bosses seen back in #380)
Can someone tell me the difference between those 3 types of demons as according to D&D? I vaguely remember lawful evil and chaotic evil from playing Planescape: Torment 5 years ago but I’ve never heard of neutral evil. Also, what’s with this daemon/demon stuff?
I’m glad I didn’t overthink it then. I was guessing it was a reference to some specific people or a pun I was missing.
Over on EN World, someone point out that it’s also a possible shout-out to the old Dragon comic Yamara.
OMG…they do resemble the Frinn beings, don’t they?
Interesting. It was kind of implied that the FriNn beings were probably shorter things standing on each others shoulders, yes?
It was all rather vague, as alignment stuff tended to be.
Devils (lawful evil) were organized in a regimented hierarchy, albeit with lots of scheming and infighting and such.
Demons (chaotic evil) were dominated by whichever demon was powerful enough to get other demons to do their bidding. Plus lots of scheming and infighting and such.
Daemons (neutral evil) were basically presented as independent powerbrokers of the Lower Planes, but weren’t really developed as much as devils and demons had been. There may have been more on them in Planescape materials, though. Primarily they were presented as go-betweens for devils and demons, and as pursuing their own, private agendas. Whatever those were. They had a few powerful types, not really presented as their “rulers”. And lots of scheming and infighting, of course.
“Daemon” should be pronounced exactly the same as “demon”. But everybody I know pronounced it with an exaggerated the A-E diphthong, to distinguish the two. Another EGGism, cribbing it.
I vaguely recall “demodands” as well, who were fiends inhabiting the Chaotic Neutral Evil lower plane. Or perhaps the Neutral Evil Chaotic plane. They were even less defined than the daemons.
Just as devils became baatezu and demons became tanar’ri in 2nd edition, the daemons became yugoloths and the demodands became gehreleths. Because TSR, in that time period, had guts of jelly and (well after the high tide point of anti-D&D feeling was past) were desperately trying to deflect any fundie attention. Pretty much every old-school D&D player rolled their eyes and continued to call them devils, demons, daemons and demodands.
Good catch. I would not have noticed that.
Pretty good, but IME demons don’t scheme so much as “do”… Whereas Devil’s and their hierarchy give them some sort of demons, demons pretty much just do for the sake of doing. If they actually planned and schemed the demons wouldn’t be the unpaid bitches of Devils like the majority of them are now (the Abyss notwithstanding).
(The rest is elaboration on your post, not disagreement)
I know next to nothing about daemons, but the Devil and Demon difference generally comes down to this: Devils have rigidly enforced contracts and regulations and will probably try to lure you to do evil or help them this way, in fact in a lot of campaigns you spend less time fighting devils and more time pulling Fausts on them by weaseling out of contracts (Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer had this). Devils are honor bound, it sounds weird based on most people’s perception of “evil,” but a Devil is probably more likely to help a goodly king of a Kingdom trying to keep order than a group of wanton Bandits that slaughter and pillage for the sake of slaughtering and pillaging (though that’s partially because helping the king lures him closer to evil). IIRC The Devils also have a sort of “Geneva convention” for taking over planes, but they’re more rules to keep the Devils happy and make it harder for the power pyramid to shift than any sort of compassion.
Demons will basically just kill you because they can, they may tempt you but if they’re doing so there’s no real guarantee they’ll keep up their end of the bargain, which actually makes them good underlings for Devils who can use their lack of moral qualms about breaking contracts to their advantage, it’s really the only time you see absolute Devil ruthlessness regardless of contract wording, they absolutely enforce their control over demons with all sorts of sadistic foremen and whatnot to keep them from breaking THEIR contracts. There are a certain subset of ridiculously powerful Demons though, but they hold no real power other than “everyone knows they’re the boss” they don’t really command anyone because they have no control structure. If you invade their layer of the Abyss they’re only really the “leader” because no one else has smacked them down a peg yet.
Thank you. Thank you. It seemed obvious to me. Doesn’t answer the Big Question, though. Vaar, meet Pat.
Devils don’t negotiate with demons. You’re forgetting the Blood War (which is actually referenced in the lastest OOTS). Devils and demons are (generally) engaged in a two-sided genocidal war, and have been for the better part of eternity. The daemons are [del]the[/del] a “neutral” party who sell weapons, equipment and mercenaries to both sides, and have figured out ways to profit from their planes being used as the battlefield.
I think the demodands are pretty much outside of the whole thing, and have their own concerns which don’t involve any of the other players (besides which, their society is much simpler than any of the other evil outsiders’, there only being three subspecies to deal with).
#633 is up.
An interesting trade indeed…
Actually, I’m as curious about the catch as Vaarsuvius is. 'Cuz a few hours of soul-loss isn’t much.
Also, they’re all clearly lying about their intents. But that’s obvious.
Two possibilities:
[ul]
[li]They’re planning on doing something to V’s soul while it’s in their possession.[/li][li]They’ll be picky about when they choose to borrow V’s soul. Say, near a gate?[/li][/ul]
Its a simple timing thing. A few hours might seem inconsequential unless they are some very key hours.
A speculation here, but we’ve seen the three fiends are interested in the Gates. This may be their way of getting a man (or woman if that’s the case) inside. They do this service for V; V rescues the kids; and V eventually rejoins the rest of the Order in pursuit of the Gates. The fiends can sit back and wait, ready to jump in and take over V at some critical moment to push a situation in their favor.
Yeah, it’s obvious what the fiends are after, and that they’re lying. But what I think is really impressive is… they’ve offered a deal that V would be willing to take. With reservations, of course, knowing there’s a hidden stinger. But, not nearly the drawback (on the face of things) that eternal damnation would be.
Very clever.