Fiends and Evil Gods

[Dr. Azkur]

I intrigued myself with the question... how are the relationships between fiends, specially devils, and the evil gods? In what I have read, which I admit has not been much, they don't usually come into much contact... How and why do the evil gods put up with devils ruling hell itself?

Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to answer! :smallbiggrin:

[DeltaEmil]

It depends on the setting.

In the implied setting of 3e/3.5, which is Greyhawk, the devils rule Hell because the gods made a pact with Asmodeus that he should punish evil people according to Fiendish Codex 2.

In the Forgotten Realms, this explanation can be true there as well. However, Kelemvor, the new god of death has made an accord with devils that they're allowed to try to tempt the souls of former mortals (any religion or faithless and false). In return, the devils are supposed to beat up demon raiders from the Abyss who steal souls from the Wall of the Faithless.

In Eberron 3.5 version, the devils don't have their own Hell the rule, and are hanging out on the plane of eternal battle (Shavrath or something), where they fight against celestials and demons all the time, and deities might not really exist at all.

Still, some evil deities can and do employ fiends as their servants or minions

[jedipotter]

D&D has lots of gods, so even if ''they'' cared that the devils ruled Hell...well who are ''they''? Most settings like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, don't have a big god squad. You can't get dozens of gods of all alignments and view points to agree to anything.....most of the time.

Gods, treat fiends like any other life form really. Tons and tons of feinds serve gods to get more power. Fiends don't ''worship'' as much as the ''respect a greater power'', but the effect is the same. Tons of fiends serve gods willing. Tons serve unwilling. And some fiends are even created by some gods to be their own personal fiends.

[TheDarkDM]

D&D has lots of gods, so even if ''they'' cared that the devils ruled Hell...well who are ''they''? Most settings like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, don't have a big god squad. You can't get dozens of gods of all alignments and view points to agree to anything.....most of the time.

Gods, treat fiends like any other life form really. Tons and tons of feinds serve gods to get more power. Fiends don't ''worship'' as much as the ''respect a greater power'', but the effect is the same. Tons of fiends serve gods willing. Tons serve unwilling. And some fiends are even created by some gods to be their own personal fiends.

And some fiends rank above the gods, especially on a multiversal scale.

[Phelix-Mu]

Most evil gods probably don't care much about Hell as a place unless it is the location of their personal demesne. And inside their demesne, most gods are virtually unassailable. They have their own setups to corrupt people, garner worshipers, reward their faithful, and punish transgressors, and largely only care about the big concepts of good and evil as it relates to the planes insofar as those concepts affect their worshipers (or affect rival or enemy gods).

Also, some evil gods readily contribute to the flavor of various of the evil planes. Maglubiyet and Gruumsh wage eternal war on a mindblowing scale on the metal cubes of Acheron, and that struggle influences the various other endless, hopeless conflicts of the many other combatants of that plane. Tiamat's abishai and Kurtulmak's fiendish kobolds both add considerably to the population of Avernus, and I'm sure Bel has agreements with each over tributary forces in the Blood War or just who defends what in the event that the demons ever made it to Avernus. Garyx, the mad dragon god of mindless destruction for the sake of it, makes his home in the windswept depths of Pandemonium, no doubt terrorizing any of the razorwings that dare to venture near his realm, or during random blitzes where he goes about flaming everything he can put within reach of his breath weapon.

The gods are forces in their own right. While they may modify or add flavor to a given plane, they largely aren't dependent on the politics of whatever plane for their well-being, and focus mainly on their own concerns (though their concerns may include meddling in the affairs of said plane). This is actually also true for good-aligned gods and planes, though, of course, good-aligned creatures often have a higher tolerance for cooperation and friendly socialization than evil-aligned creatures.

[atemu1234]

I'd go with the fiendish codex explanations. The abyss creates the demons at a constant rate, making its defeat impossible, and constant battle required to stop from unbalancing the multiverse. Devils are part of the force against them, and the Pact Primeval stops the gods from interfering with them. The evil gods get their souls from their faithful, and whether they're tortured or not depends on the god; for the most part, the gods mind their souls while the demons pick from the faithless or those that willingly trade theirs. All in all, the gods probably only get the strongly faithful souls, like the ones that went and fought and died for their beliefs, not every soul that says, "For Odin's sake!" whenever his son says something ridiculous.