Paladins, Slayers of...Fey?

[NeoSeraphi]

So I was surfing the SRD because I don't own a copy of the DMG so I don't know about all the cool magic items, and I saw the holy avenger. Now, it works pretty much like I would have expected (the last time I saw a holy avenger at a table, it was in a 2nd edition game, though it also allowed the paladin who wielded it to cast some healing spells a few times per day, but I think that might have just been DM fiat).

The only thing that surprised me was...the sword is made of cold iron. Why? It's already holy in the hands of a paladin, which means that it overcomes a demon's damage reduction (Demons have DR/Cold Iron or Good), and it's not exactly clear to me why a paladin would be better at slaying demons than devils anyway. (Maybe it's because of the Law vs Chaos thing? But WotC completely dropped the ball on that when they designed the paladin class anyway, so I don't have high hopes for them when it came to designing his magic item).

Other creatures you would expect the paladin to try and slay (lycanthropes, vampires, etc) have DR/Silver, not cold iron. The only other creature I can think of that has DR/Cold Iron (besides demons) is certain types of fey. So...paladins slay fey now? Is there some kind of lore reason for this that I'm missing?

Just seems kind of out of nowhere here.

[Shadowknight12]

It's made of Cold Iron because it needed to be made of some speeeshul material, Silver is too lame (a pity, it's my favourite metal) and Adamantine is too good. Also because you're not supposed to want to enchant it further. Cold Iron helps being a pain in the rear for that.

Also I suppose it could be against Fey, but that kind of offends me, so I'll refuse to acknowledge it.

[Flickerdart]

Powerful demons like the Balor have DR X/good and cold iron.

[DeltaEmil]

Balors and mariliths need cold iron and good. Then again, that's the egg and the chicken scenario they made for 3.5. The holy avenger sword is a holy cold iron weapon because balors and mariliths and other high-end demons have damage reduction that can only be bypassed by holy cold iron weapons, and to make the holy avenger a necessity for paladins (more or less), they made balors and mariliths (and other high-end demons) have damage reduction that can only be bypassed by a holy cold iron weapon.
A daft logic, but that's how you have it.

[eggs]

Its major abilities are antimagic. What material is associated with antimagic?

[Flickerdart]

Its major abilities are antimagic. What material is associated with antimagic?
The blood of warriors foolish enough to think that AMF means they can take on spellcasters, mostly.

[NeoSeraphi]

Balors and mariliths need cold iron and good. Then again, that's the egg and the chicken scenario they made for 3.5. The holy avenger sword is a holy cold iron weapon because balors and mariliths and other high-end demons have damage reduction that can only be bypassed by holy cold iron weapons, and to make the holy avenger a necessity for paladins (more or less), they made balors and mariliths (and other high-end demons) have damage reduction that can only be bypassed by a holy cold iron weapon.
A daft logic, but that's how you have it.


Powerful demons like the Balor have DR X/good and cold iron.

Fair point, but again, why is the paladin supposed to be better at demon-slaying than devil-slaying? Pit fiends have DR/Good and Silver, after all. It seems like the devil would offend the paladin more, just because the devil is a Lawful Evil creature, so he has similar views to the paladin in terms of honor and order, but corrupts those views with his evil. (Like, if I was a paladin, I think I'd hate a blackguard more than just a crazy chaotic evil barbarian).


Its major abilities are antimagic. What material is associated with antimagic?

:smallconfused: Cold Iron is antimagic? I've never heard of this. Source?

[DeltaEmil]

Nah, in WotC's viewpoint, they envisioned the paladin hating demons more, because they're chaotic evil and the paladin is lawful good and lawful good and chaotic evil fight each another because they hate each another because they are totally different in every aspect and similar daft logic. Also, they thought that demons are kewler and more powerful (teh balor haz vorpal sword omgomgomg!!!!111lol) than their devilish counterpart (snort, pit fiend haz only claws weaksauce).

[georgie_leech]

Fair point, but again, why is the paladin supposed to be better at demon-slaying than devil-slaying? Pit fiends have DR/Good and Silver, after all. It seems like the devil would offend the paladin more, just because the devil is a Lawful Evil creature, so he has similar views to the paladin in terms of honor and order, but corrupts those views with his evil. (Like, if I was a paladin, I think I'd hate a blackguard more than just a crazy chaotic evil barbarian).





One would think, but D&D alignment is all about the clash of opposites, Law vs Chaos, Good vs Evil, Butter side up vs Butter side down, etc. Their idea is that Lawful Good characters stand true against the Chaotic Evil Monsters threatening to destroy all that is good and just, Chaotic Good rebels help the populace to overthrow the Lawful Evil Tyrants, and other such binary clashes. Yes, I too find it more irritating when someone seems to be corrupting a value that I consider it important, but the game is less nuanced than that.

EDIT: Swordsaged by forum lag, outstanding.

[Coidzor]

Never heard of a coincidence? :smallconfused:

[georgie_leech]

Never heard of a coincidence? :smallconfused:

Nah, got an internal server error when I tried to post. took a couple minutes before the post worked.

[NeoSeraphi]

Actually, if cold iron has flavor or mechanics based around anti-magic, that would make more sense that the paladin having this need to beat the crap out of demons. Where is that discussed in official content?

[Flickerdart]

Cold iron has a folkloric association with being the opposite to magic, I believe. The closest it's reflected in the system, to the best of my knowledge, is that cold iron weapons are twice as expensive to enchant.

[Jeraa]

The sword is cold iron, because the sword was always meant to kill demons. The sword in 1st edition:


Sword, +5. Holy Avenger, is a holy sword. In the hands of any character other than a paladin, it will perform only as a +2 sword. In the hands of a paladin, however, it creates a magic resistance of 50% in a 5' radius, dispels magic in a 5' radius at the level of magic use equal to the experience level of the paladin, and inflicts +10 hit points of bonus damage upon chaotic evil opponents.

Paladins fight against evil, and the sword was better against chaotic evil creatures. The holy property in 3.X makes it good against evil creatures, but by making it out of cold iron it retains its original flavor - being better against chaotic evil opponents (As demons, being the epitome of chaotic evil, have DR that cold iron overcomes.)

And in 1st edition, demons took full damage from iron weapons, but no damage from silver ones. Devils, on the other hand, took no damage from iron weapons and full damage from silver ones. Sounds like demons had DR overcome by cold iron, and devils had DR overcome by silver, just like it is in 3.X.

[NeoSeraphi]

Cold iron has a folkloric association with being the opposite to magic, I believe. The closest it's reflected in the system, to the best of my knowledge, is that cold iron weapons are twice as expensive to enchant.

Folkloric, huh? I've never even heard of the material outside of D&D. :smallconfused:

[Flickerdart]

Folkloric, huh? I've never even heard of the material outside of D&D. :smallconfused:
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_iron#Cold_iron) has some details on the subject.

[Feralventas]

If we're going to bring up folk-lore, it's worth mentioning that a lot of fae were terrible child-stealing monsters. Might make sense for a paladin to take up arms against some fae, even if they don't qualify as Evil; the Glaistig or Red Cap from MM3 for example.

[Eldan]

Cold Iron is technically just another term for steel, or just iron. And iron was supposed to hurt fey and elves, which are often somewhere between mischievous and downright malicious in folklore. So you hang a horseshoe over your door for good luck. This was taken into D&D as fey having DR/cold iron, which was made a special material there. Now, with the blood war and all, Law vs. Chaos is a major theme of D&D. Fey are very chaotic in D&D, so cold iron was expanded to be the weakness of most chaotic creatures that have damage reduction. The chaotic good Eladrin have it too.
Silver, on the other hand, is another major mythological metal, mostly representing purity, but also the moon, which represents strong emotions.
So, it was used as the generic weakness of lawful creatures.


Also inherited from the blood war and Planescape was the idea that most lawful creatures were at least reluctantly helped the devils, and most chaotic creatures helped the demons: if the demons won the blood war, it would be bad for all lawful creatures, as they'd probably take on the modrons next, then perhaps formians, archons... so the devils are the lesser evil. Archons can cooperate with them, and have in the past. And by extension, Paladins hate demons more than devils.

[Elfinor]

Although I suppose that would be generally true, there is at least one Paladin Order (Tyr's Order of the Holy Judgement) that prioritiseS slaying devils (and criminals) over demons, because they think it's a perversion of law etc. Interestingly, they're one of Tyr's paladin orders that emphasise the 'law' side of LG.

They're juxtaposed with Tyr's Order of the Merciful Sword, which focuses on hunting evil monsters and demons. They emphasise the 'good' side of the LG alignment.

[Person_Man]

As a side note, there's a prestige class called Cold Iron Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20040507a) which specializes in killing Fey. It's not great for a PC, but it's a nice choice for an NPC enemy if your players use a lot of magic.

[Quietus]

As a side note, there's a prestige class called Cold Iron Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20040507a) which specializes in killing Fey. It's not great for a PC, but it's a nice choice for an NPC enemy if your players use a lot of magic.

Actually, that's terrible for a PC. It'd only be useful for NPCs, where you expect that 1-2 uses of their spell turning like ability will be enough. And their dispel magic ability is laughable; caster level = PrC level? What, are you only trying to dispel Paladin and Ranger spells? Even when they add the wisdom modifier to that, odds are good you aren't prioritizing wisdom, so you aren't going to have a huge bonus there - and they can't even be bothered to add properly for their example. 10+4 = 13? Really, WotC?

[Particle_Man]

My DM has a "lawful land" where the paladins detect chaos instead of evil and the law/chaos divide is seen as more significant than the good/evil divide. Our characters haven't been there yet though - at least one of them is CN and fey to boot!

[Dimers]

Folkloric, huh? I've never even heard of the material outside of D&D. :smallconfused:

I've seen it in two series of novels (not D&D-related) and one book of mythology, and I don't doubt there's a great deal I haven't read yet that would support the concept.

In some cases it's "anti-magic" in the sense of being mundane and very much a part of the normal world. Other literature stretches that idea to include active disruption of magic/weirdness, rather that simply being unlike it.

[Particle_Man]

I think it began as "painful to fey" and then the D&D game expanded that to "hurts demons" because they wanted something to hurt demons.

[Mystral]

Another thing you should not forget:

Paladins are agent of good AND law. And you don't get much more chaotic then fey. That's right, fey are capricious, chaotic and often downright dangerous. Don't think of tinkerbell, think of redcaps and glaistigs and joy stealers. Fey are dangerous. People called them "the fair folk" to not make them mad, because God help you if you did.

Sure, a paladin would not strike down the friendly dryad or the harmless, pranking pixies that sew his sleeping bag shut while he sleeps. But if he ever needs to protect some afraid farmers from the wild hunt that threatens to steal their children, he has the tools.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFairFolk

[boredgremlin]

So I was surfing the SRD because I don't own a copy of the DMG so I don't know about all the cool magic items, and I saw the holy avenger. Now, it works pretty much like I would have expected (the last time I saw a holy avenger at a table, it was in a 2nd edition game, though it also allowed the paladin who wielded it to cast some healing spells a few times per day, but I think that might have just been DM fiat).

The only thing that surprised me was...the sword is made of cold iron. Why? It's already holy in the hands of a paladin, which means that it overcomes a demon's damage reduction (Demons have DR/Cold Iron or Good), and it's not exactly clear to me why a paladin would be better at slaying demons than devils anyway. (Maybe it's because of the Law vs Chaos thing? But WotC completely dropped the ball on that when they designed the paladin class anyway, so I don't have high hopes for them when it came to designing his magic item).

Other creatures you would expect the paladin to try and slay (lycanthropes, vampires, etc) have DR/Silver, not cold iron. The only other creature I can think of that has DR/Cold Iron (besides demons) is certain types of fey. So...paladins slay fey now? Is there some kind of lore reason for this that I'm missing?

Just seems kind of out of nowhere here.

In mythology lots of fey were complete A-holes. "pay me or I'll poison all your crops and steal your children" kind of A-holes. Even lots of D&D cannon has things like nymphs and dryads using magic to randomly enslave people and a fair amount of evil fey creatures have been statted up over the years.

So I'd say that paladins killing them is generally appropriate.

[Cieyrin]

In mythology lots of fey were complete A-holes. "pay me or I'll poison all your crops and steal your children" kind of A-holes. Even lots of D&D cannon has things like nymphs and dryads using magic to randomly enslave people and a fair amount of evil fey creatures have been statted up over the years.

So I'd say that paladins killing them is generally appropriate.

Exactly. Get yourself an original Grim's Fairy Tales and you'll see what fey are meant to be, not what Disney portrays. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts are not to be taken lightly by any mortal or immortal. The fey see humans and humanoids as playtoys at best and it only gets worse the longer they've been around and the more powerful they become. Forget the devils screwing you over in a contract, the fey will outright cheat you out of anything and everything you care about if you don't choose your words and actions carefully. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to the fey.

[Coidzor]

Murdering them in the face, however, totally is.

[Cieyrin]

Murdering them in the face, however, totally is.

It works for Guts, why wouldn't it work for everyone else? :smallwink:

[Captain Six]

Don't think of tinkerbell, think of redcaps and glaistigs and joy stealers. Fey are dangerous. People called them "the fair folk" to not make them mad, because God help you if you did.

:smallconfused: I'm only familiar with Disney's Tinkerbell, where she spent the whole movie trying to murder a small girl in an act of misplaced jealousy.

[Wyntonian]

Thank you for helping me sex up the Solerians. Gogo Fey-hunting warrior-priests!

I dunno, I feel like Cold Iron, in my opinion anyway, represents civilization at its peak. You can derp around with some bronze stuff with pretty rudimentary forges, but to work iron and steel you really need some fairly advanced metallurgical techniques. So, Fey, who are about as natural and animalistic as a sentient and sapient being can get, consider something artificial and civilized to be anathema.

[CharityB]

I've always felt that fey were typically evil in D & D. The argument that I've seen for why they're chaotic neutral tends to boil down to, "They're weird and not like humans, so their morality is different, so when they murder your children for fun that doesn't make them evil" which would be OK except most aberrations and elder evils have the same fluff but they're almost never granted that defense.

[boredgremlin]

I'm pretty sure if you look at some of the old lore from the real world circles of cold iron were believed to have occult powers to block magic the same way that some people believed that a line of pure sea salt could or garlic would block out vampires.

[Thrawn183]

Silversheen is inexpensive. It's tough to make a silver weapon overcome DR/cold iron and good.

[Particle_Man]

Now i want to try a campaign in which fey are all given the evil alignment and are made into the main antagonists of the world.