A Fiend based campaign?

[Grim Portent]

I'm a relatively new RPer but I'm considering several ambitious ideas for campaigns already, one of which is inspired by the Book of Vile Darkness and would consist of the players being fiends, half-fiends and other creatures that could justifiably dwell in the evil aligned planes, and rising in power and influence amongst the ranks of the eternal powers of darkness. The idea for the ultimate goal is that the players seek to become archfiends and reign as supreme entities of evil.

I figured that a similar principle wouldn't work in a non-evil setting as the other outsiders lack the ambitious back-biting nature required to justify the vast amount of intra-alignment combat. Not to mention that evil on evil violence is less likely to go beyond the players comfort zone.

My question is: Is this a feasible idea for a long running campaign or should something like this be kept short? Maybe used as background to a world in which the characters who succeeded now serve as NPC archfiends and are involved (or at least referenced) in the events of a mortal based campaign.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That sounds like it has great potential.

I'd be cautious about which lower plane I set it in though. The abyss is a wash, political power isn't worth much there. Baator might be too structured unless you fail to do the epitome of twisted law justice (gotta love the irony of that sentence.) Hades is right out; it's dead in the middle, meaning way too much blood-war going on to accomplish anything. I'd probably set up shop for this campaign in gehenna if I were doing it, for just the right mix of structured society and room for creative problem solving. Carceri might work, but It'd end up more like prison politics than capital hill politics (not that I'd expect the two to be that different if both places housed actual fiends instead of fiends amongst men.)

Btw, might I suggest Machiavelli's The Prince as a good read to get in the mood for this sort of campaign.

[TheCountAlucard]

Some time back, I was considering running a Blood War-based campaign, but I never got it off the ground. :smallsigh:

It sounds like a fun idea, though.

[Grim Portent]

My idea was to allow the players to seek power in (and be able to travel to) any of the planes they wanted but with the majority of the places they could realistically do things being in the lower planes, possibly putting a focus on the demon lords and the archdevils.

I happen to like the concept that the only way to truly gain power in either the abyss or the nine hells (those two being the most easily depicted in my opinion) would be by using the powers and influence found amongst a blend of chaotic/lawful and maybe even evil/good characters to disrupt the normal balance of power.