How to "fix" the blood war. [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

NecroDancer

2017-04-25, 09:33 AM

Dappershire

2017-04-25, 09:53 AM

Except that they are literally born to hate one another. The war between Law and cHaoS, Devil's and Demons has a ton of legitimate lore behind it. Not just in DnD, but in our own world's mythology. To take that out would be to destroy a good portion of the fluff for the lower planes and beyond.
As for Celestials, they -are- chumps. Maybe not against a party, but as far as the Planes go, yeah, chumps with a lower case c. If it wasn't for the Blood War, the Heavens would be in a lot worse shape right now.
But, you do how you do, if you got a plan for what you're altering, im sure your players will enjoy themselves.
As far as celestial mercs, there is an entire realm (forget which, but one of the nicer layers of the abyss)at war, with one entire army consisting of a butt ton of Paladin's and their soldiers. Summoned celestials (and angelic volunteers) in every direction.

Millstone85

2017-04-25, 12:51 PM

My fix regarding the celestials would be to emphasize all the cosmic threats they have to take care of beside the fiends:
* The so-called "elemental evil", those primordials who would break the balance of the Inner Planes.
* The machinations of the Dark Powers, possibly the true personification of moral evil in the Wheel.
* Alien and maddening things coming from what lies beyond the known multiverse, the Far Realm.

They might also direct ressources toward various projects, for the betterment of the planes, that do not involve fighting a battle.

It would be possible to portray celestials as being of equal strength with the fiends, or even more badass, yet still about to be overwhelmed should the fiends stop fighting each others.

The celestials are caught up in their own civil war about if the mortals need morals enforced on them or if mortals can be good on their own.
The war between Law and cHaoS, Devil's and Demons has a ton of legitimate lore behind it.I think the opposition between Law and Chaos might take a different form in the Upper Planes. Perhaps there is a peaceful competition between the heavenly realms to see which one is the most heavenly. Or perhaps it is that even lawful celestials see the need for chaotic celestials, and reciprocally.

In 5e, the LG angels serve all good-aligned gods, and it doesn't look like the edition will acknowledge guardinals and old school eladrins anytime soon. I could similarly see the CG pegasi making their nests on Mount Celestia.

Beleriphon

2017-04-25, 01:03 PM

My fix regarding the celestials would be to emphasize all the cosmic threats they have to take care of beside the fiends:
* The so-called "elemental evil", those primordials who would break the balance of the Inner Planes.
* The machinations of the Dark Powers, possibly the true personification of moral evil in the Wheel.
* Alien and maddening things coming from what lies beyond the known multiverse, the Far Realm.

This a good point, the celestial realms have other priorities.

They might also direct ressources toward various projects, for the betterment of the planes, that do not involve fighting a battle.

I think the opposition between Law and Chaos might take a different form in the Upper Planes. Perhaps there is a peaceful competition between the heavenly realms to see which one is the most heavenly. Or perhaps it is that even lawful celestials see the need for chaotic celestials, and reciprocally.

Quite possible.

In 5e, the LG angels serve all good-aligned gods, and it doesn't look like the edition will acknowledge guardinals and old school eladrins anytime soon. I could similarly see the CG pegasi making their nests on Mount Celestia.

I think the big thing with the Great Wheel for good outsiders is they all come from a specific plane, but being good aligned they don't actively fight each other. I also like the idea that more animal like creatures, like pegasi, live on all good aligned planes that suit their habitat needs.

Celestial creatures might disagree with how to help and be good, but they don't outright fight each other about it. In comparison the fiends kind of make sense in terms of going to war with each other, since they want the same things (souls) and the easiest targets are evil mortals, so that's a massive up tick in how many souls are gained if the demons or devils can completely annihilate the other side.

icefractal

2017-04-25, 01:27 PM

Why on earth would the celestials want to intervene? Except possibly to keep the war going on longer if it looked like one side was winning, which they might already be doing covertly.

The Blood War keeps a large part of demonic and diabolic forces and resources occupied, and mostly happens on planes where everything has already been ruined by it anyway. It's the perfect state of affairs!

Not to mention that "the celestials" have the same Law/Chaos division that the fiends do, they're just able to work together in spite of it. Intervening for one side or the other would put strain on those alliances.

But if you did want to include Celestials in the war itself, one way would be containment: they have their own army that comes down hard on any demonic/diabolic forces that spill outside the "approved" planes for the Blood War. It doesn't even need to match the fiendish armies to be a strong deterrent, since any effort one side spends fighting the celestials is an advantage to the other.

Also, highly mobile strike teams that swoop down on battlefields where both sides are mostly depleted and grab as many souls as possible.

gkathellar

2017-04-25, 01:35 PM

Two problems:

(a) The "goal" of the Abyss in the Blood War is the eradication of structured reality. That's not really a negotiable point, as most Demon Princes are various forms of Eradicating Structured Reality. Not incarnations or avatars of it - this is literally the thing that they are, and you only see them as giant monsters because comprehending their real forms is the same thing as death. (Incidentally, this is the deal with Pale Night: she is The Universe Dies, and so the Universe refuses to acknowledge her.) You can't really convince a Demon Prince not to want that, and you can't convince Asmodeus not to oppose it because he's not really amenable to that outcome. Also the yugoloths get off on it, so you'd have to somehow persuade them that endless violence isn't a fun time.

(b) Fixing it would be anything but. The Blood War is the latest iteration of a conflict between Law and Chaos that predates good and evil, and that conflict keeps the universe in balance and amenable to life on the Prime. Law wants the universe to be mechanistic and structured, while Chaos wants to dissolve everything into quantum stew. At present, the balance is slightly in favor of law, and any adjustment would go badly for the planes as a whole.

NecroDancer

2017-04-25, 02:37 PM

My fix regarding the celestials would be to emphasize all the cosmic threats they have to take care of beside the fiends:
* The so-called "elemental evil", those primordials who would break the balance of the Inner Planes.
* The machinations of the Dark Powers, possibly the true personification of moral evil in the Wheel.
* Alien and maddening things coming from what lies beyond the known multiverse, the Far Realm.

They might also direct ressources toward various projects, for the betterment of the planes, that do not involve fighting a battle.

It would be possible to portray celestials as being of equal strength with the fiends, or even more badass, yet still about to be overwhelmed should the fiends stop fighting each others.

I think the opposition between Law and Chaos might take a different form in the Upper Planes. Perhaps there is a peaceful competition between the heavenly realms to see which one is the most heavenly. Or perhaps it is that even lawful celestials see the need for chaotic celestials, and reciprocally.

In 5e, the LG angels serve all good-aligned gods, and it doesn't look like the edition will acknowledge guardinals and old school eladrins anytime soon. I could similarly see the CG pegasi making their nests on Mount Celestia.

This is great! If I include the some material form PotA (finally a use for it).

The Aboleth

2017-04-25, 04:33 PM

I'm not overly familiar with all the lore published concerning the Blood War, but isn't it written somewhere that the celestials occasionally (and covertly) aid one side or the other in an attempt to keep the Blood War going? If either side ended up winning, the full might of every fiend would then hone in on the Upper Planes...thus, it's in the best interests of the angels that the Blood War continue indefinitely.

Am I misremembering, or do I have it basically correct?

Segev

2017-04-25, 05:04 PM

I generally have a slightly reversed take from what mechanics support for how power should be distributed. Bear with me a moment as I outline it, as it might provide some aid to the OP.

Typically, mechanical comparison of similar-"rank" LG creatures to LE or CG creatures will reveal the LG creature to be stronger. Similarly, LE creatures are individually stronger than their counterparts on the CE side.

This is exactly backwards of how I would conceive it.

To me, evil and chaos should both be routes to individual power. A Chaotic Evil thing should be more powerful, individually, than its LE, CG, and certainly LG counterparts. If you want to be personally as powerful as possible, the rejection of restraint and the willingness to make others pay any price for your power should be the optimal route.

But Lawfulness encourages cooperation by establishing order and unity of purpose. It focuses multiple beings together to magnify their power. That lone Chaotic being is not going to encounter lone Lawful ones very often, and even when he does, the Lawful side can organize for retaliation. Similarly, Good encourages friendship, alliance, and working towards mutual benefit even when the reciprocation seems unlikely. Attack the Good, and they will team up to defend each other.

Both are therefore force-multipliers en masse.

Individually, Celestials should be generally weaker than individual Fiends. They stay out of the blood war because the blood war is one of the things balancing the overall power in the planes! Because evil is infighting, whereas the LG and CG celestials merely bicker without actually throwing resources down the waste bin of war, Good is as strong as anything Evil does against it.

UndeadArcanist

2017-04-25, 06:22 PM

I had the thought that if celestials joined the blood war, then they could keep pulling in allies, good, neutral, and evil, until the whole multiverse is engulfed in war.

Except it isn't about Good vs. Evil. It's about Law vs. Chaos. The players appear after a thousand years of fighting, at which point there seems to be no possible end. Paladins live and train alongside devils, and together they march off to fight an allied elf/drow army who have put aside their differences for the greater goodchaos. All throughout the planes, everyone (yes, everyone) is dedicated to the war effort, not realizing how profoundly stupid and pointless their cause is. And beneath it all, the Blood War burns brighter than ever.

Bottom line: joining a war doesn't always fix it.

Godskook

2017-04-25, 07:12 PM

It's an intresting concept that sadly has a lot of holes in it (and it seems to overtake a lot of planescape torment). The main problems are that it makes the celestials seem like chumps and there isn't an exact reason for demons and Devils to be fighting.

I've modified it a bit to be about demons wanting to destroy everything and the Devil's wanting to rule everything (so far it works well) but I want some way to include celestials in the war.

Some ideas are

1). The celestials are acting as mercenaries for either side in exchange for souls (that they hope to redeem).

2). The celestials are secluded while working on a fantasy nuke to wipe out both sides.

3). The celestials are caught up in their own civil war about if the mortals need morals enforced on them or if mortals can be good on their own.

4). Some magical plague is infecting the celestial realm.

5). An Eldritch incursion has occurred in the upper planes and the celestials are investigating/trying to contain it.

I want to include the blood war mainly because I want to run a war arc filled with wacky demons and Devils dukeing it out (seriousness/drama isn't my forte).

It should be noted that, as far as I understand things, the entire existence of Devils is that they are "corrupted" Celestials who went to fight the Blood War. This whole "stop the blood war to defeat the Celestials" thing makes less sense to me than the idea of CG+CE allying to throw off the oppressive Lawful-types who's will more demonstrably controls reality. According to FC2, there was originally no distinction whatsoever between Heironeous and Asmodeus in terms of "alignment" of the time.

Lo'Tek

2017-04-25, 09:01 PM

there isn't an exact reason for demons and Devils to be fighting.
Ask 5 people, get 6 opinions. The only point pretty much everyone agrees on is that is old. Very old.
So old in fact most opinions on how it started are directly tied to creation mythology, with some claiming the conflict to be even older.
Let me give you a tip: if anyone gives you an explanation, always check if a recruitment flyer is attached.

it makes the celestials seem like chumps
Why? Because if you go to heaven you are not shanghaied into an endless war? Beeing a full faction in the war clashes with everything the upper planes stand for. Sure they have armies and sometimes even interfere, but history has shown again and again that all cases of "if X doesnt win this fight Y wins the blood war" turned out to be lies and traps.
The celestials are still prepared and able to act in force. Whenever the blood war spills out of the lower planes you can expect them, the lawfuls will even be punctual.
Task forces sometimes attack a lower plane, most often to rescue someone or something, sometimes to attack a specific fiend, but only rarely to get involved in the blood war. Yet a large battle close by might just be the right oppertunity to free those prisoners.

The celestials are acting as mercenaries for either side in exchange for souls (that they hope to redeem).
Ah so that is why the powers of the lowers like pure souls so much. They open a way to buy deniable assets.
What a great moral dilema! Aid a pure evil in its schemes to save a few souls?
Why are mortals even able to sacrifice other peoples souls to the lower planes?
What would happen if i sacrifice a red dragon to a good power?
My best guess is a stern lecture about fire safety regulations and proper recycling.

Some magical plague is infecting the celestial realm.
Another answer to the question "why is good weak", which is the wrong question.
Evil must look powerful: the promise of power is one of their primary advertisements.

When thousands of Baatezu march in unison to battle,
when the Tanar'ri brutally cull the weak from their own ranks,
the Celestial sit in the garden and enjoy a nice cup of tea.

War is the evil way of "solving" the law/chaos divide.
Good has no part in it by definition, they solved it by uniting below the banner of good.
Which is why an end to the war is impossible: Evil would need to agree that war is not the solution.

Now let us assume a cease fire to allow an even greater war against good:
The forces of good are at their very best when they stand united to defend,
and it just takes a few lost battles before conflicting ideas on how to win and why they lost ignite the blood war again.
Hell knowing the fiends winning a battle will ignite the blood war again, over something little maybe, like a pepple a Tanar'ri took but which was part of the spoils of war the Baatezu have a claim on.

Kane0

2017-04-25, 10:29 PM

I've modified it a bit to be about demons wanting to destroy everything and the Devil's wanting to rule everything (so far it works well) but I want some way to include celestials in the war.

Some ideas are

1). The celestials are acting as mercenaries for either side in exchange for souls (that they hope to redeem).

2). The celestials are secluded while working on a fantasy nuke to wipe out both sides.

3). The celestials are caught up in their own civil war about if the mortals need morals enforced on them or if mortals can be good on their own.

4). Some magical plague is infecting the celestial realm.

5). An Eldritch incursion has occurred in the upper planes and the celestials are investigating/trying to contain it.

You know I don't even see it as much of a modification. Devils are manipulators and tyrants, Demons are forces of destruction. That's just what they are.

1) I can see this possibility. This kind of murky 'good but not Good' is what started Big A and his best minions down the slippery slope of Devilness according to some sources.

2) Also a possibility. A nice big haymaker to clear out all the fiends isn't a bad way to spend your time and effort if you're not actively involved in the fighting. In fact the distraction is a good thing, so long as the fronts stick to the evil planes.

3) Not something I see a lot of celestials going to war over. Being capital G good usually means being able to agree to disagree, way more than Evil does at any rate.

4) Probably engineered by fiends, but the reverse could also be occurring. Magical curses/diseases that target only fiends sounds like a great way to purge some evildoers. Excellent chance to have active but covert agents on both sides seeding these weapons.

5) According to some sources that's kind of the origin of it all. That eldritch 'otherness' that threatens all known and loved got called 'chaos'. The war against the far realm is neverending, and involves pretty much everything in the multiverse at some level.

A great chance to throw in the celestials is if the Blood War spills out over other planes (the neutral or good outer planes, any inner or prime planes) that threatens collateral damage to non-Evil peoples. Celestials would definitely want to get involved if that were to happen.

Mechalich

2017-04-26, 12:14 AM

The only real problem with the Blood War is that it is heavily implied - and at points explicitly stated - that if the various forces of evil managed to stop fighting each other they would quickly be able to overwhelm the forces of good. This is a problem because it devalues good as a force in the multiverse, especially given that if you look at the distribution of your average D&D populace the overwhelming majority of members of the most populous races (humans, elves, dwarves, etc.) are of good alignment or at least of neutral alignment. Evil humans are fairly rare, even in regions like Thay where evil is dominant. The number of humans throughout the multiverse who end up as Lantern Archons as opposed to Lemures significantly favors the archons. Of course this is somewhat counterbalanced by the existence of 'evil races' like goblins who disproportionately contribute souls to the lower planes to fuel the Blood War, but these races are generally less numerous simply because they can't pull together the highly efficient sustained agricultural civilizations that allow significant population growth. Regardless, the distribution of outsiders isn't explicitly tied to souls anyway - Tanar'ri can form spontaneously out of the matter of the Abyss, and beings like Modrons and Slaadi aren't tied to mortal energies in anyway (in fact the number of Modrons cannot decrease at all, making their numbers in terms of military capability effectively infinite).

However, the Blood War makes plenty of sense on its own. It represents the struggle between two very different moral philosophies to monopolize the entire pool of 'evil' sources of power. Of course, unlike their good counterparts (who agree to mostly just debate strenuously about this) or their neutral counterparts (who has mostly decided to ignore the neutral mortals and simply exist on their own), the evil outsiders choose to manifest their conflict through no-holds-barred violence on a universal scale - because of course they do, they're D&D evil. They enjoy it. Evil outsiders wish to 'crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women' (admittedly, lamentations may be in short supply on the lower planes). The Blood War is not only the journey, it is also the goal. Both sides would see peace, even if it brought them almost unimaginable gains, as being robbed of the most essential part. No doubt they also see fighting their Blood War opponents as far more satisfying than trying to take siege to the Upper Planes: before you can even get to the Celestials you have to fight through the neutrals and fighting Modrons is lame, fighting Slaadi is just stupid, and fighting Rilmani is singularly frustrating. Sure you can occasionally find a portal to some lovely bit of upper planar real estate or unspoiled prime world and run hog wild for a while (and fiends certainly take those opportunities), but eventually the celestials are going to show up with overwhelming force and flatten you.

Additionally, neither the demons or devils (or any other evil outsiders for that matter), are worried about the Celestials winning. Evil will always exist, it can't be eliminated from the cosmos, but there's no guarantee that a specific kind of evil will always exist. Canon establishes that neither Baatezu nor Tanar'ri are the one true representatives of Lawful or Chaotic Evil respectively. Should they get their buts kicked sufficiently they could lose their replacement to other representatives of the forces of evil. As a result, the Blood War is not simply a fight for dominance, it's a fight for notoriety. The constantly conflict reinforces the image of both sides as the principal representatives of their philosophies across the multiverse.

PersonMan

2017-04-26, 01:19 AM

I'd work with the "Good isn't a war machine" angle.

The Upper Planes aren't on par, strength-wise, with the Lower - at least when it comes to fighting strength. They don't devote all of their time and energy to war and conflict, so they appear weaker if you just measure up the two side-by-side.

However, you're comparing a fully mobilized, fighting faction against one enjoying peace. If the Upper Planes needed to, they could mobilize similarly to how the Lower Planes have, and quickly attain parity (or potentially be stronger, as they have a larger base to work off of due to not already being at war for so long).

Hell is the small, heavily industrialized, hyper-militarized totalitarian state made for total war. Heaven is the sprawling federation that doesn't have the same resources because it doesn't need them, but they have the potential to match or exceed the former once they mobilize fully.

hamishspence

2017-04-26, 02:13 AM

Mechalich

2017-04-26, 05:17 AM

In a crowd of ten commoners, odds are good that three will be evil. But that doesn't mean they are monsters or even killers -- each is just a greedy, selfish person who willingly watches others suffer.

In D&D moralism, a person who willingly watches others suffer is neutral, not evil. That quote displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what is takes to be evil in D&D. In D&D you can 'only following orders' any action and still remain neutral so long as that truly is your motive. Evil in D&D is the realm of psychopaths and sociopaths, and those aren't even close to 10% of the population anywhere. Most humans are good - because humans are social animals who support other members of their families and tribes and the way D&D works that turns out to make you good. Heck, if raised in a society that penalizes murder (which is almost all human societies) people will be very hesitant to kill unless in possession of rare mental illnesses (which in D&D translates into evil because D&D does not differentiate between mental health and moral stance).

There has not been any society in human history, up to and including Nazi Germany, where the majority of the population would qualify as evil by D&D standards. Supernatural influence can allow for unusual distortions, but for every society that is distorted toward evil by supernatural forces there will be another turned the other way so that balances out. You can have a society where the majority of the elite are evil, but if you try to expand that to the majority of the population society collapses in upon itself. Many people under evil authorities will remain good aligned, they just won't have the courage to take any productive actions, and the rest will be neutral - again, obeying evil commands because you feel threatened, or because you really need the job, or simply because you don't have the strength of will to disobey doesn't make you evil in D&D, it just makes you neutral.

The idea that alignments are anything close to evenly distributed in human populations (or elf, dwarf, gnome, or halfling ones) is a ridiculous idea that was never even considered prior to 3e and ought to have stayed that way. Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, and Neutral Good are the most common alignments by a huge margin. Chaotic alignments are inherently rare, because truly chaotic people cannot maintain a place in society (they can't maintain a job long term or respect the legal system), which cripples their numbers. Evil alignments similarly occur at a low rate, because D&D evil is outside the standard human mental framework - the Pathfinder Champions of Evil supplement describes evil philosophies by basically listing off a series of severe mental impairments - it is rare. I doubt more than 5% of the population is truly chaotic and the same holds true for those truly evil.

hamishspence

2017-04-26, 05:44 AM

Chaotic alignments are inherently rare, because truly chaotic people cannot maintain a place in society (they can't maintain a job long term or respect the legal system), which cripples their numbers.
Doesn't "elf society" demonstrate that it is possible to have the majority of people in a society be Chaotic - and yet still have it work?

"D&D standards" for evil (or chaotic) can vary from edition to edition.

Third party source Quintessential Paladin II gives, as a couple of examples:

Low Grade Evil Everywhere
In some campaigns, the common population is split roughly evenly among the various alignments - the kindly old grandmother who gives boiled sweets to children is Neutral Good and that charming rake down the pub is Chaotic Neutral. Similarly the thug lurking in the alleyway is Chaotic Evil, while the grasping landlord who throws granny out on the street because she's a copper behind on the rent is Lawful Evil.

In such a campaign up to a third of the population will detect as Evil to the paladin. This low grade Evil is a fact of life, and is not something the paladin can defeat. Certainly he should not draw his greatsword and chop the landlord in twain just because he has a mildly tainted aura. It might be appropriate for the paladin to use Diplomacy (or Intimidation) to steer the landlord toward the path of good but stronger action is not warranted.

In such a campaign detect evil cannot be used to infallibly detect villainy, as many people are a little bit evil. if he casts detect evil on a crowded street, about a third of the population will detect as faintly evil.

Evil As A Choice
A similar campaign set-up posits that most people are some variety of Neutral. The old granny might do good by being kind to people, but this is a far cry from capital-G Good, which implies a level of dedication, fervour and sacrifice which she does not possess. If on the other hand our granny brewed alchemical healing potions into those boiled sweets or took in and sheltered orphans and strays off the street, then she might qualify as truly Good.

Similarly, minor acts of cruelty and malice are not truly Evil on the cosmic scale. Our greedy and grasping landlord might be nasty and mean, but sending the bailiffs round to throw granny out might not qualify as Evil (although if granny is being thrown out into a chill winter or torrential storm, then that is tantamount to murder and would be Evil). In such a campaign, only significant acts of good or evil can tip a character from Neutrality to being truly Good or Evil.

if a paladin in this campaign uses detect evil on a crowded street, he will usually detect nothing, as true evil is rare. Anyone who detects as Evil, even faintly Evil, is probably a criminal, a terrible and wilful sinner, or both. Still, the paladin is not obligated to take action - in this campaign, detecting that someone is Evil is a warning, not a call to arms. The paladin should probably investigate this person and see if they pose a danger to the common folk, but he cannot automatically assume that this particular Evil person deserves to be dealt with immediately.

Eberron (and some other sources) seem to be operating with "Low Grade Evil Everywhere" whereas you (and early sources like Gygax?) seem to be operating with "Evil as a Choice".

Pathfinder Champions of Evil supplement describes evil philosophies by basically listing off a series of severe mental impairments - it is rare. I doubt more than 5% of the population is truly chaotic and the same holds true for those truly evil.

Pathfinder also makes a point of how not all Evil is "to be attacked" by the PCs:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-description/additional-rules/

Creatures with an evil subtype (generally outsiders) are creatures that are fundamentally evil: devils, daemons, and demons, for instance. Their redemption is rare, if it is even possible. They are evil to their very core, and commit evil acts perpetually and persistently. Mortals with an evil alignment, however, are different from these beings. In fact, having an evil alignment alone does not make one a super-villain or even require one to be thwarted or killed. The extent of a character’s evil alignment might be a lesser evil, like selfishness, greed, or extreme vanity. Having these qualities might not even cause the character to detect as evil when subjected to detect evil, as creatures possessing 4 or fewer Hit Dice do not register to the spell (with the exception of clerics or other characters that radiate an aura).

I doubt more than 5% of the population is truly chaotic and the same holds true for those truly evil.

Most humans are good - because humans are social animals who support other members of their families and tribes and the way D&D works that turns out to make you good.
The PHB suggests "sacrificing yourself for friends, family, or even nation" is compatible with a Neutral alignment - it's making sacrifices for people you're not connected to - strangers, people from other nations, etc - that supports a Good alignment.

Cityscape (using the assumption of humans as base) has "default community alignment" for large communities be more often Lawful than Chaotic, yes - but not to the extent you suggest.

LG: 20%
NG: 8%
CG: 8%
LN: 25%
N: 6%
CN: 2%
LE: 20%
NE: 6%
CE: 5%

Chaotic totals 15%, Evil totals 31%. (Good totals 36%, Lawful totals an amazing 65%). "Most humans (in cities and large towns) are lawful" works better than "Most humans are Good".

gkathellar

2017-04-26, 06:50 AM

Millstone85

2017-04-26, 06:54 AM

Ask 5 people, get 6 opinions. The only point pretty much everyone agrees on is that is old. Very old.
So old in fact most opinions on how it started are directly tied to creation mythology, with some claiming the conflict to be even older.Here is what would be my take on it.

In the beginning was Limbo, a plane of unfettered creation.

Worlds would emerge from it, but none could subsist under the onslaught of ever more worlds.

Then from Limbo appeared Mechanus, a plane of supreme permanence.

Between Limbo and Mechanus, there was conflict, but also concord.

In time, the conflict became the Lower Planes, and the concord the Upper Planes.

Let me give you a tip: if anyone gives you an explanation, always check if a recruitment flyer is attached.Join the Elysian Alliance today!

hamishspence

2017-04-26, 06:58 AM

Capital-E Evil is at war because war is, at the end of the day, an evil thing. Capital-G Good isn't for exactly the same reason.
That works well with BoED - which emphasises that the Upper Planes do not go to war with one another unless somebody in them has been corrupted - on track to becoming a fallen celestial.

Eldan

2017-04-26, 07:54 AM

Here is what would be my take on it.

In the beginning was Limbo, a plane of unfettered creation.

Worlds would emerge from it, but none could subsist under the onslaught of ever more worlds.

Then from Limbo appeared Mechanus, a plane of supreme permanence.

Between Limbo and Mechanus, there was conflict, but also concord.

In time, the conflict became the Lower Planes, and the concord the Upper Planes.

Join the Elysian Alliance today!

THat is, plus minus, how Planescape had it. With later editions. Of course, no one is quite sure anymore how it happened in the very beginning. But there were early forces of law, like Wind Dukes and forces of chaos, like the Queen of Chaos, and they pretty much immediately fell out and started fighting. Depending on what one believes about beings like Mishra the Wolf-Spider and which creation story of Asmodeus or Ahriman one takes as true, good and evil are just nuances in the war between law and chaos.

gkathellar

2017-04-26, 08:28 AM

THat is, plus minus, how Planescape had it. With later editions. Of course, no one is quite sure anymore how it happened in the very beginning. But there were early forces of law, like Wind Dukes and forces of chaos, like the Queen of Chaos, and they pretty much immediately fell out and started fighting. Depending on what one believes about beings like Mishra the Wolf-Spider and which creation story of Asmodeus or Ahriman one takes as true, good and evil are just nuances in the war between law and chaos.

It goes at least as far back as the draeden (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draeden) brawling it out with the original original original beings known as dragons, before the planes or the powers even existed. Law vs Chaos - or to be more accurate, Chaos/Formlessness vs. Cosmos/Form - isn't just the oldest conflict in the multiverse, it's the creation myth. All subsequent major planar conflicts have been repetitions of decreasing magnitude, as the beings involved have grown steadily weaker, more numerous, and more factional. At present it's mostly just the fiends, because most everybody else has a working relationship with their ideological rivals.

Cluedrew

2017-04-26, 08:39 AM

Ah so that is why the powers of the lowers like pure souls so much. They open a way to buy deniable assets.That explains so much. In so many different settings as well. Good beings might be out to save everyone, but they are going to have a hard time turning down the chance to save someone who is already good.

As for everything I have to say about the Blood War itself, I think it has already been said. Except maybe one idea, and that is celestial recruiters who scan the battlefields looking for anyone who might look like they are starting to doubt all this violence. Because if you think that getting along would be better than fighting it out, do we have the thing for you. Its called Good.

Segev

2017-04-26, 11:37 AM

One need not be a psychopath to be evil. One need not even commit atrocities to be evil, on a small or large scale. One need merely be willing - truly willing - to do such things if the selfish circumstances are right.

The PHB's description of a "greedy landlord" who "throws granny out for being a copper behind on the rent" is just as easily LN as he is LE. LN would do it because those are the rules, and nothing in the rules says he's allowed to forgive her that copper piece. It would be leaning towards LG to forgive it by gifting it to her and fulfilling her rental agreement that way.

LN or LE could also gift her that cp if, for example, he didn't have a better tenant in mind who would both be as little cost to maintain the apartment and be willing and able to pay more.

Where LE comes in is when he creates conditions to rapidly drain Granny's finances with sureties and guarantees and security deposits, and then kicks her out for being a copper behind so that he can invoke hidden clauses or use his "sole evaluation" power to determine that he gets to keep her full set of deposits...and then try to recycle the scam with a new victim who won't read the contract carefully enough (or properly evaluate the landlord's nefarious goals) to avoid signing on.

And that LE landlord running a deceptive money-squeezing operation like that? He's evil, but he's not somebody the paladin can just arbitrarily Smite without suffering alignment issues. He's not an overt, direct murderer. He's not doing anything illegal (though he might be skirting darned close in an LG society). As the PHB says, if an orc is trying to beat this greedy landlord up, the Paladin is still obliged to protect him (at least as much as he's obliged to protect anybody). Of course, he could prioritize others he likes more to protect, as he only has so much he can do, but he can't stand idly by and watch evil be committed to this Landlord. And he certainly can't use brute force, himself, to "bring justice." He can threaten (to whatever extent a paladin will be believed when he does so). He can cajole. He can warn people away from the scam. But he can't actually hurt the guy for this particular evil, alone.

hamishspence

2017-04-26, 11:48 AM

I'd suggest "doing things out of prejudice" is another strong symptom of LE-ness.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#theNineAlignments

He condemns others not according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank. He is loath to break laws or promises.

if the character is imposing "stricter standards" on the "lower in social rank" than on those higher up - even if they are equally able to pay him back long-term - the character who throws out "peasants" who are overdue, but gives "impoverished aristocrats" significantly better treatment - that's a possible hint of an Evil alignment, all other things being equal.

In short, the bigot is always more likely to be evil than the non-bigot.

Segev

2017-04-26, 01:25 PM

I'll grant that bigotry can be a warning sign for evil, and can lead one to evil behavior, but it is not inherently a marker.

Just because Sir Paladinum the elf shows a predisposition to trust humans, elves, and halflings, but has a thin veneer of politeness over his sneering attitude towards "crude" dwarves and gnomes and is likely to presume that the wrongdoers in a fight between goblins and halflings are the goblins doesn't mean that he'll resort to cruelty against those he is more likely to initially believe ill of.

Even if he's biased against goblins and orcs enough to suspect them first, that might merely slow down his investigation should it turn out that it was really an elf who was the wrongdoer. Even if he's more likely to strictly enforce the rules against a dwarf - because he "knows" the dwarf is likely to break them again and is unlikely to try to do better - than he is against a human - because he thinks he can educate her on how she SHOULD act and expects she'll both try and succeed at doing better - he isn't being evil. Just...unfair. Not even entirely unjust.

Especially if his prejudice is rooted in experience: 9 times out of 10, giving that gnome a benefit of a doubt that he won't make ANOTHER crude "humorous" illusion at the fancy party has only resulted in further embarrassment and discomfort for all the guests, whereas most times, the human really is just...well, young, and inexperienced, and WILL try to do better and TRY to be polite and take instruction well.

Again, that doesn't make it "right," but it does allow for bigotry without being evil. Even the most bigoted NG Sheriff will fight to his own death before allowing an orc to be lynched without first actually being certain the orc deserves it.

What I will say is this: If you meet a bigot, hope he's Lawful, because Lawful people will hold back until due process is done. Chaotic people who are bigoted are far more likely to slip into evil, because a hallmark of Chaotic alignment is trusting your own judgment over that of any system or other authority. Chaotic bigots are far more likely to act on their presumptions in irrevocable ways. Lawful bigots are still likely to make some choices that are...unpleasant...for the target of their bigotry, but they will restrain themselves, in general, from anything the can't undo if the due process reveals this target is - perhaps only in this case - innocent of wrongdoing.

ngilop

2017-04-26, 01:47 PM

Stuff that makes a point.

not trying to be like a mean person here. But I think you have the definition of bigotry confused with prejudice.

and while similar and coming from the same root, they are not the same. But this is a often misunderstanding

Frosty

2017-04-26, 03:56 PM

Sometimes prejudice does hurt a lot. For example, what if the NG sheriff or mayor of a town was faced with a situation where marauding orcs were terrorizing the countryside and many refugees were trying to enter his town? What if that mayor decides that all half-orc refugees had to go to back to the line for "extreme vetting" and wait much longer to get in because he felt that half orcs are inherently less trustworthy and more likely to be collaborating with orcs? Humans and elves get in quickly but half orc families must wait days, weeks or even longer outside city walls as they wait to be vetted? And if some of those half orcs die from the orcs, isn't the NG mayor at least partially responsible?

Segev

2017-04-27, 10:40 AM

not trying to be like a mean person here. But I think you have the definition of bigotry confused with prejudice.

and while similar and coming from the same root, they are not the same. But this is a often misunderstandingIsn't bigotry just prejudice based on race, sex, or other group-based characteristics?

Prejudice against orcs, prejudice against women, prejudice against men, prejudice against Pelorites, prejudice against Barbarians, prejudice against Sorcerers - those are bigotry.

Prejudice against folks who cuss and swear when they apply for a job might still be prejudice, but wouldn't be bigotry. At least, that's how I understand the terms. Am I mistaken?

Sometimes prejudice does hurt a lot. For example, what if the NG sheriff or mayor of a town was faced with a situation where marauding orcs were terrorizing the countryside and many refugees were trying to enter his town? What if that mayor decides that all half-orc refugees had to go to back to the line for "extreme vetting" and wait much longer to get in because he felt that half orcs are inherently less trustworthy and more likely to be collaborating with orcs? Humans and elves get in quickly but half orc families must wait days, weeks or even longer outside city walls as they wait to be vetted? And if some of those half orcs die from the orcs, isn't the NG mayor at least partially responsible?

If the NG mayor allows refugees who are of the group known to be trying to destroy the town and murder its people in without due diligence, is he not at least as responsible for the murders committed against the refugees against the dam where the explosive runes trap was set up, and the damage to the city when the dam is destroyed?

Of course, now we get into all the other ways that saboteurs sneak in with the refugees, from disguise self and polymorph spells, to mind-control of otherwise-innocent refugees, to simply stealthing past the guards. But there is a certain reasonable ire at the NG mayor if the bad guys don't have to so much as sneak in by pretending not to be part of the hostile group.

Frosty

2017-04-27, 11:55 AM

The half orc refugees are not affiliated with the orc marauders. The mayor is just assuming they might be based on being (half) the same race.

Segev

2017-04-27, 12:35 PM

The half orc refugees are not affiliated with the orc marauders. The mayor is just assuming they might be based on being (half) the same race.

How is the mayor to know that for sure, without doing whatever vetting he can? I get very tired of moral judgments on people who can't have the same complete information the one passing the moral judgment does.

"The paladin falls because one of the 10 orcs he killed as part of that fight was actually a double agent who was purposefully missing the heroes." Well, how was the paladin supposed to know that? Was that what he DIDN'T learn when he rolled a 5 on that seemingly-random Sense Motive check?

Pretending the prejudice is known to be unjustified - as opposed to acknowledging that it exists and sucks for those against whom it's directed, but the people exercising it cannot know it's unjustified - is just smug elitism.

If the mayor has somehow ALREADY managed to vet every single one of those half-orc refugees to be certain they're not part of the orc marauders' tribe and aren't working with them, then yes, he's being a jerk - probably even evil - by making them wait in a dangerous situation for unnecessary extra vetting. But otherwise, "Hey, these guys look just like the kind of person the orcs use for infiltration into human territories all the time," is a pretty good reason to want to pay special attention before just letting them into the place that's meant to keep people safe from the orc marauders. Just as, "No elf has ever been known to work with orcs as an infiltrator," is a pretty good reason to let an elf in with only enough security vetting to make sure he really is an elf and doesn't have any obvious reason to make one think he might be the unique first time.

Pattern recognition involves prejudice, but it is not always unwarranted.

Dr paradox

2017-04-27, 01:57 PM

How is the mayor to know that for sure, without doing whatever vetting he can? I get very tired of moral judgments on people who can't have the same complete information the one passing the moral judgment does.

"The paladin falls because one of the 10 orcs he killed as part of that fight was actually a double agent who was purposefully missing the heroes." Well, how was the paladin supposed to know that? Was that what he DIDN'T learn when he rolled a 5 on that seemingly-random Sense Motive check?

Pretending the prejudice is known to be unjustified - as opposed to acknowledging that it exists and sucks for those against whom it's directed, but the people exercising it cannot know it's unjustified - is just smug elitism.

If the mayor has somehow ALREADY managed to vet every single one of those half-orc refugees to be certain they're not part of the orc marauders' tribe and aren't working with them, then yes, he's being a jerk - probably even evil - by making them wait in a dangerous situation for unnecessary extra vetting. But otherwise, "Hey, these guys look just like the kind of person the orcs use for infiltration into human territories all the time," is a pretty good reason to want to pay special attention before just letting them into the place that's meant to keep people safe from the orc marauders. Just as, "No elf has ever been known to work with orcs as an infiltrator," is a pretty good reason to let an elf in with only enough security vetting to make sure he really is an elf and doesn't have any obvious reason to make one think he might be the unique first time.

Pattern recognition involves prejudice, but it is not always unwarranted.

There's also the question of how often Orcs have ACTUALLY done something like that, and pre-existing relationships with the half orcs. the way the situation was framed, it sounds as if these are half orcs who have lived in the area and been part of the community for quite some time. This is a different story from your Paladin example, because there's no evidence that there are ANY infiltrators, so putting people at risk by forcing extra vetting based on race alone, with no regard for personal history, strikes me a pretty shady act.

Segev

2017-04-27, 02:16 PM

"Refugees" and "living in the community for some time" don't usually go together in my experience. I suppose they could, but that wasn't implied to me.

Frosty

2017-04-27, 03:08 PM

In either situation it's pretty shady. But let's break it down and be more specific then.

Situation 1) It is well known that there are half orcs in the surrounding countryside, and they are mostly farmers. nominally, he Town and the countryside are all considered part of the same "country" although in "medieval" times county is a more nebulous concept and people more identify wih the town they're from AFAIK. The half orcs seek refuge in the walled town because it's much safer.

Situation 2) the half orc refugees are from a neighboring country. However, it is also well documented that the orc raiders don't give half orcs any special treatment. Half orcs are fair game as targets for raiding and killing.

In either situation, basing suspicions purely on race is not the right thing to do.

Segev

2017-04-27, 03:17 PM

Other than making sure that half-orcs don't have real orcs hiding amongst them, no.

Nobody is saying bigotry for the sake of bigotry is a good thing. I only acknowledge that prejudice isn't always inherently unjustified. However, we have laws and due process in most of what we consider good - lower-case-g - civilizations precisely to avoid prejudice becoming a dominant factor in determining "guilt" and desert for punishment.

Ironically, it is Chaotic societies which are more in danger of having prejudice lead to evil than Lawful ones, and perhaps that's why, of necessity, Chaotic Good societies are less likely to have prejudice show up. Not because Chaos is less prejudiced, but because Chaos+Prejudice leads to Evil and away from Good.

Whereas Law can allow for greater prejudice while remaining Good because it just means you more carefully watch those you prejudge, but you still subject them to as fair and legally-protected a process as you would anybody else, even if you're pretty sure it's the half-orc, and not the half-elf, that was the criminal who murdered that dwarf. Even though both were found fighting near the body and each accuses the other of the actual murder. The prejudiced LG investigator will suspect the half-orc instinctively, but won't let that impede his rigorous adherence to the due process that will help avoid false convictions.

The prejudiced C* individual is going to have a much harder time avoiding incorrectly punishing the half-orc, because C* tends to be the sort that says, "Screw what you can prove in court; I KNOW he's guilty" and go for the crime lord...or the other "obviously guilty" parties who escape "justice" due to loopholes in the law.

Bohandas

2017-06-04, 04:00 AM

It's an intresting concept that sadly has a lot of holes in it (and it seems to overtake a lot of planescape torment). The main problems are that it makes the celestials seem like chumps and there isn't an exact reason for demons and Devils to be fighting.

I've modified it a bit to be about demons wanting to destroy everything and the Devil's wanting to rule everything (so far it works well) but I want some way to include celestials in the war.

Some ideas are

1). The celestials are acting as mercenaries for either side in exchange for souls (that they hope to redeem).

2). The celestials are secluded while working on a fantasy nuke to wipe out both sides.

3). The celestials are caught up in their own civil war about if the mortals need morals enforced on them or if mortals can be good on their own.

4). Some magical plague is infecting the celestial realm.

5). An Eldritch incursion has occurred in the upper planes and the celestials are investigating/trying to contain it.

I want to include the blood war mainly because I want to run a war arc filled with wacky demons and Devils dukeing it out (seriousness/drama isn't my forte).

I believe the canonical explanation is that war is peace. As long as the demons and devils are focused on killing/enslaving/torturing each other they aren't focused on killing/enslaving/torturing anything else, (and furthermore {but much less canonically} war is also peace for Baator as well; Hell needs the war to continue for both propaganda purposes and to continue the validity of the Pact Primeval)

Also, and admittedly this next part doesn't apply to lesser celestial beings like angels and archons and stuff, but IIRC canonically the Yugoloths (it's implied to to the yugoloths at any rate) also got together and worked some kind of epic wasting curse or something that saps the power of any god that tries to intervene too much in the war

Bohandas

2017-06-04, 04:45 AM

(a) The "goal" of the Abyss in the Blood War is the eradication of structured reality. That's not really a negotiable point

I think that really their main goal is to hurt and maim and kill things, and they'd weep bitter tears of blood if they ever ran out of things to kill. My headcanon in fact is that they don't really even see the blood war as a war at all, they see it as a sport.

jayem

2017-06-04, 08:34 AM

I think that really their main goal is to hurt and maim and kill things, and they'd weep bitter tears of blood if they ever ran out of things to kill. My headcanon in fact is that they don't really even see the blood war as a war at all, they see it as a sport.

Related to the good has other things to do, just having good want lots left (and the lawful evils a bit) at the end makes a difference.

The celestials could have a million seraphic missiles, while the diabolical realm only have 1.
If the celestials attack, the diabolicals wipe out the mortal plane. The celestials are left alone in an empty universe, the diabolicals are dead.
If the diabolicals wipe out the mortal plane, the celestials wipe them out. The celestials are left alone in an empty universe, the diabolicals are dead.
In either case both lose according to their goals (despite good being 'stronger')

While on the demonic side, you have the friends thing. They might be able to use their seraphic missile even (especially) if it hits more demons than angels. While the angels won't do the same in reverse. But they also have to watch for the demon behind doing the same to them.

Cosi

2017-06-04, 09:55 AM

The Blood War should die because it exists solely as an expression of "Law versus Chaos" which is a stupid and pointless distinction that should also die. Instead, you can just have demon princes and devil lords fight each other at various scales for various reasons. Humans have managed to produce all of the wars in history without any overarching reason, and we aren't even egotistical, shortsighted sociopaths who revel at the thought of conflict (well, mostly). If you need Demogorgon to fight Asmodeus, you can use any of the reasons that humans have fought over all of history like "he had land I wanted" or "we both wanted to marry the same woman" or "a complicated series of alliances caused a small conflict to escalate because neither side was willing to back down".

(a) The "goal" of the Abyss in the Blood War is the eradication of structured reality.

Having a war where one side's goal is "destroy everything ever" is not amenable to third parties. The agenda "destroy everything ever" is necessarily opposed to all other agendas -- indeed, it is opposed to all possible other agendas (even the agenda "destroy this specific thing" is only meaningful if other things exist that are not destroyed). If you want anything, whether that thing is "rule over tortured souls in hell", "free souls tortured in hell", or even "get really, really, rich", you first have to prevent the people whose goal is "destroy everything ever" from winning.

Law wants the universe to be mechanistic and structured,

That's just physics. FFS, we're talking about a game, there are literally books that lay out how the multiverse works. If the goal of "Law" is "create structure", it has already won to the maximum possible degree.

Eldan

2017-06-04, 10:43 AM

Law vs Chaos is just one of many reasons that is given in the setting. And it is used more often as a kind of "France vs. Germany". It's a name for two opposed sides, that just also happen to be philosophical principles. Think Fascism and Democracy, maybe.

Hell is a power structure with a head. And that head is interested in fighting the Abyss. So, all of Hell is more or less grudgingly forced into it, as that is Hell's purpose. Even so, the Lords of Hell don't actively take part and leave most of the planning to the Dark Eight.

In the Abyss, things are much less unified, which is one of the reasons why Hell even has a chance in this. Most demons don't want to fight the Blood War and do everything they can to get out of it, that's why the Molydei exist.

Millstone85

2017-06-04, 12:24 PM

That's just physics. FFS, we're talking about a game, there are literally books that lay out how the multiverse works. If the goal of "Law" is "create structure", it has already won to the maximum possible degree.We are also talking about fantasy worlds where magic might be able to bypass the laws of physics entirely, or even be what wrote these laws in the first place. And we are talking about an activity where we seek balance between a structured game and boundless imagination.

Law vs Chaos can be really interesting and meta. Try renaming Mechanus as the Plane of Consistency, Limbo as the Plane of Creativity, and throwing in a few references to The Lego Movie.

Cosi

2017-06-04, 12:42 PM

We are also talking about fantasy worlds where magic might be able to bypass the laws of physics entirely, or even be what wrote these laws in the first place.

That's not how physics works. The laws of physics are whatever laws describe how the universe behaves. Right now, we believe that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (possibly modulo some stuff about qunatum physics or other research, it's not my field). If you were to travel faster than the speed of light somehow, you wouldn't have "bypassed the laws of physics", you would have just discovered that the existing models of physics we use were incomplete. Magic can't do anything to bypass the laws of physics, because the laws of physics are just "what things you can do". If you can make fire with your brain, physics necessarily includes a mechanism for doing so.

Law vs Chaos can be really interesting and meta. Try renaming Mechanus as the Plane of Consistency, Limbo as the Plane of Creativity, and throwing in a few references to The Lego Movie.

But those things aren't opposed. It's like having a big war between "Salad" and "Red". Those are both things, and people probably have opinions on both of them, but they're not opposites.

Millstone85

2017-06-04, 01:59 PM

That's not how physics works. The laws of physics are whatever laws describe how the universe behaves.
If you were to travel faster than the speed of light somehow, you wouldn't have "bypassed the laws of physics", you would have just discovered that the existing models of physics we use were incomplete.And that, in my opinion, is one way to describe the difference between science fiction and fantasy.

Science fiction acknowledges the real life concept of physics, and any "magic" the story introduces is framed as sufficiently advanced technology, alien lifeforms, newly discovered phenomenons and the like. The genre asks how our understanding of the universe would change if X or Y turned out to be possible.

With fantasy, now, you have to be prepared to accept the full absurdity of the concept that is magic.

But alright, let's go sci-fi. Mechanus could represent the current order of the multiverse, or the local order of the Great Wheel in an even larger multiverse, while Limbo would represent the potential for that order to change or be replaced. Limbo may have its own laws, but the extent of what they allow is too wide for anyone's comfort or survival. Still, with Mechanus alone, the multiverse would be far too static and unable to grow.

But those things aren't opposed. It's like having a big war between "Salad" and "Red". Those are both things, and people probably have opinions on both of them, but they're not opposites.Even if you do not consider them opposites, creativity and consistency do come into conflict, as do things like security and freedom.

Keep in mind that this war of Law and Chaos is going on between fiends, beings that are evil incarnate.

The celestials? Oh yeah, Law, Chaos, not something to fight over.

Cosi

2017-06-04, 11:01 PM

With fantasy, now, you have to be prepared to accept the full absurdity of the concept that is magic.

There's no absurdity. Magic does weird stuff, but so does our physics. The idea that "make fire with your mind" is somehow "absurd" but black holes are not is just a function of your point of reference. The scholars of D&Dland presumably consider fireball a perfectly explicable part of the world, but view the idea of a mass so dense not even light can escape from it as absurd.

But alright, let's go sci-fi. Mechanus could represent the current order of the multiverse, or the local order of the Great Wheel in an even larger multiverse, while Limbo would represent the potential for that order to change or be replaced. Limbo may have its own laws, but the extent of what they allow is too wide for anyone's comfort or survival. Still, with Mechanus alone, the multiverse would be far too static and unable to grow.

Now you've just got law on both sides. It's (essentially) a state/federal type distinction. Certainly, the laws passed in Denver may conflict with those passed in Washington, but both are laws.

The celestials? Oh yeah, Law, Chaos, not something to fight over.

Why not though? The game presents Law/Chaos and Good/Evil as equal axes of disagreement. If I fight Evil people because I am Good, why shouldn't I fight Lawful people because I am Chaotic. If Law/Chaos is meaningless for the Good people and meaningful for the Evil people because of traits not inherent to it, it should be removed because it's not doing anything. The demons are fighting the devils because both sides are Evil, not because one side is Lawful and the other Chaotic.

Bohandas

2017-06-04, 11:05 PM

I've always imagined law vs. chaos on the upper planes to consist of the archons and eladrins making rude passive-aggressive comments about each other

Bohandas

2017-06-04, 11:31 PM

And that, in my opinion, is one way to describe the difference between science fiction and fantasy.

Science fiction acknowledges the real life concept of physics, and any "magic" the story introduces is framed as sufficiently advanced technology, alien lifeforms, newly discovered phenomenons and the like. The genre asks how our understanding of the universe would change if X or Y turned out to be possible.

What about Ghostbusters? Ghostbusters* is very firmly in both genres

*(I'm referring here to the series by Harold Ramis, not the similarly named Funimation series or the similarly named Paul Feig series; I'm not at all familiar with either of those franchises and can't speak of their contents or genres)

Mechalich

2017-06-05, 12:50 AM

Why not though? The game presents Law/Chaos and Good/Evil as equal axes of disagreement. If I fight Evil people because I am Good, why shouldn't I fight Lawful people because I am Chaotic. If Law/Chaos is meaningless for the Good people and meaningful for the Evil people because of traits not inherent to it, it should be removed because it's not doing anything. The demons are fighting the devils because both sides are Evil, not because one side is Lawful and the other Chaotic.

Generally, this is true. So long as the law/chaos distinction is actually meaningful, the two sides will despise each other, even if they don't actually fight.

Properly chaotic characters do not fit within society. They may be good from a moral perspective, but they will reject societal authority, violate low-level laws they consider immoral or simply unimportant (for example, chaotic characters in a hurry will drive as fast as they feel safe going, the speed limit won't even enter their mind), and will generally not be able to consistently maintain jobs or a routine. Lawful society does not like these people and often passes laws designed to restrict mobility, enforce conformity, and undermine transient systems in order to restrict the ability of these types of people to function. At a sufficient extreme this can come to blows and there can be intense personal enmity. An excellent example, in media, is the anime s-CRY-ed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-CRY-ed) which features dueling lawful good (Ryuho) and chaotic good (Kazuma) who absolutely hate each other despite having mutual friends and ultimately fighting together against shared (evil) opponents.

In D&D the Archons don't like the Azata/Eladrins and vice versa, but they have chosen to compete ideologically, not physically, because they recognize that they share the same enemies and because a conflict would hurt the people in the middle on Bytopia, Elysium, and the Beastlands.

The demons and devils have no such restraint. They hate each other and it suits both sides to manifest that hatred with as much blood and violence as possible - in fact they really can't conceive of a solution that doesn't involve the utter annihilation of the other side. That other people are caught in the middle of their conflict doesn't bother them in the slightest and in fact provides them with beneficial targets of opportunity, potential slaves, and chances to impress their superiors/get their torture on. They want the Blood War, after all, it's only a problem if it threatens them personally, anyone else dying in the conflict is nothing to be troubled about.

bulbaquil

2017-06-05, 06:55 PM

Segev

2017-06-06, 10:03 AM

"Chaotic" does not mean "without reason." It means "without order." Their reason can be "because I want to," but then, so can a Lawful creature's.

Chaos and Law are more about methods. Chaotic creatures will tend to cut the Gordian Knot. Lawful ones will delight in not just navigating it, but tying it tighter so that only they can use it.

NecroDancer

2017-06-06, 10:32 AM

So someone pointed out to me that the celestials probably help keep the war inflamed whenever it starts to die down which makes sense.

However know I'm trying to figure out what happens when the blood war starts threatening good and neutral cities, how would the celestials respond without diverting the fiend's attention? Do they use magic to "cloak" cities that are in danger? Do they transport the population to a refuge camp? I currently assume that Asmodeus is in some kind of deal that prevents large amounts of his forces to leave the lower planes and that CG powers use illusions to divert the majority of demon's attention from potential innocents.

Unrelated I'm 99% percent certain that Graz'zt is allowed to visit the upper planes for the annual planar dance off/alcohol festival.

Cosi

2017-06-06, 01:38 PM

The demons and devils have no such restraint. They hate each other and it suits both sides to manifest that hatred with as much blood and violence as possible - in fact they really can't conceive of a solution that doesn't involve the utter annihilation of the other side. That other people are caught in the middle of their conflict doesn't bother them in the slightest and in fact provides them with beneficial targets of opportunity, potential slaves, and chances to impress their superiors/get their torture on. They want the Blood War, after all, it's only a problem if it threatens them personally, anyone else dying in the conflict is nothing to be troubled about.

Okay, but that makes Evil into "people who are stupid and shortsighted and lack all self-control". And those people exist, but it's hard to take them seriously as a threat.

Demons are the epitome of chaotic evil. They don't need a reason to do anything. They may literally decide to try to take over the fifth layer of hell "for the lulz".

That's terrible. lolrandom does not belong in a serious game, and you should feel bad for suggesting it.

Chaos and Law are more about methods. Chaotic creatures will tend to cut the Gordian Knot. Lawful ones will delight in not just navigating it, but tying it tighter so that only they can use it.

I'm pretty sure the guy who cut the original Gordian Knot probably counts as Lawful (particularly if Law == Order).

AMFV

2017-06-06, 04:52 PM

Okay, but that makes Evil into "people who are stupid and shortsighted and lack all self-control". And those people exist, but it's hard to take them seriously as a threat.

You don't take insane dictators and serial killers to be actual threats? I would say that's pretty short-sighted in your case, since historically insane dictators (who have killed millions at the expense of the fall of their own regimes), have y'know, killed millions at the expense of their own regimes. A demon is the manifestation in a very real sense of that kind of thing.

Imagine an alcoholic, or somebody addicted to the thrill of violence. Now take away all sense of impulse control they have and give them power, that's what a demon is, pure desire and pure self above all else. The reason that they are such a threat is because they also have power, the same way a serial killer is a threat because he can strangle you, it doesn't matter that they're aren't thinking long term, while a disorganized serial killer might be able to kill one person with his power a demonic entity could potentially kill thousands without being able to be stopped. I would take that pretty fricking serious as a threat.

That's terrible. lolrandom does not belong in a serious game, and you should feel bad for suggesting it.

It does belong in a serious game, because reality is sometimes that way. Sometimes reality does not offer an explanation that is logical and consistent within itself, particularly in the areas of human behavior. Period. Sometimes people behave in unexpected or foolish ways. Sometimes people behave in random ways or very nearly so, or in such ways that their behavior directly contradicts their desires. Of course, that's probably a mental illness, but I don't think you'd find many arguing that the forces of evil chaos are sane.

Mechalich

2017-06-06, 06:46 PM

Okay, but that makes Evil into "people who are stupid and shortsighted and lack all self-control". And those people exist, but it's hard to take them seriously as a threat.

Not really. Remember devils hate demons just as much as they hate archons, eladrins, or any other form of good outsiders, and it anything they fear demons more. After all, if the archons win, they what, quarantine Baator and stick the devils to sit on their buts for all eternity playing nice? Sure, if you're a pit fiend that's a lousy outcome, but if the demons win your eternal essence just got consumed by Demogorgon. That's worse. The demons and devils are the greatest threat to each other and they are smart enough to be aware of it. They are also smart enough to recognize that neither side can possibly be trusted to make an alliance with each other, because they'd betray the other the moment victory seemed close in order to claim it for themselves (in fact, Planescape history suggests that this has already happened, multiple times). Heck they can't even trust the greed-driven daemons to keep their word as mercenaries. Also, even if the demons and devils did team up and conquer the Upper Planes, what difference would that make, they'd still be stuck fighting each other for control of the universe.

The devils are the number one obstacle to demon dominance and vice versa. Winning the Blood War is therefore the first and most important objective in the path to overwhelming cosmic dominance. Their war is quite logical and appropriate within the context of their distorted worldviews. Devils aren't shortsided about it at all. They restrain their impulses, build stratagems that last for thousands of years, and seek every possible advantage. Demons do that too, just not consistently. Both sides also have members and indeed whole factions who prioritize other paths to power rather than the Blood War. Among the devils Asmodeus has basically farmed the whole thing out to Bel and 8 chief Pit Fiends, and numerous Abyssal Lords spend most of their effort focused on objectives like godhood and leave the devil-fighting to Balors and Mariliths.

Finally, it's worth noting that the Blood War is an ongoing concern and has a number of powerful forces invested in its continuance, including whole types of demons and devils who punish those who avoid involvement, but also various neutral (and even good) parties such as the Aeons/Rilmani who engage in all kinds of skullduggery to keep it going and many types of other evil outsider like the daemons and demonoads who are actively egging on both sides as it provides them with an advantage to operate in the shadows.

bulbaquil

2017-06-06, 07:14 PM

That's terrible. lolrandom does not belong in a serious game, and you should feel bad for suggesting it.

It does when you are dealing with the very epitome of chaotic evil, which can, in fact, be "lolrandom" irrespective of the seriousness of the setting. Whimsy is a perfectly reasonable motivation for a creature that is literally chaos personified.

(That said, you don't want to encourage lolrandom in players playing chaotic characters. These are not the epitome of chaotic evil - and, of course, it doesn't preclude demons having reasons to do things, which they certainly can. And, admittedly, lolrandom is hard to work a plot around.)

Mechalich

2017-06-06, 09:20 PM

It does when you are dealing with the very epitome of chaotic evil, which can, in fact, be "lolrandom" irrespective of the seriousness of the setting. Whimsy is a perfectly reasonable motivation for a creature that is literally chaos personified.

(That said, you don't want to encourage lolrandom in players playing chaotic characters. These are not the epitome of chaotic evil - and, of course, it doesn't preclude demons having reasons to do things, which they certainly can. And, admittedly, lolrandom is hard to work a plot around.)

Arguably, chaotic evil should never be just "lolrandom" is should be "lolawfulrandom" in that demons do incredibly impulsive things that are seemingly ridiculous and involve a complete lack of emotional control, but that outcomes are always miserable for someone (potentially including the demon if the other party can beat 'em down). Demons are, broadly, extreme sociopaths, which means they are absolutely capable of launching into a murderous rampage because they think someone is 'looking at me funny' or just 'too ugly to live' or other ludicrously petty reasons. They are, it's worth noting, generally smart enough to know what they can get away with (as most sociopaths are) and won't push it, but of course, when you have greater teleport in your ability list, the capability to escape the consequences of your actions is immense.

Grytorm

2017-06-06, 11:33 PM

You know, why can't Celestials fight just as much as fiends? Maybe in a bit more of a polite way, but I think they should still be subject of petty squabbles and rivalries which comes from big personalities and conflicting interests.

Eldan

2017-06-07, 01:47 AM

They are, they are just less likely to make them violent. The Eladrin are ceaselessly meddling in Celestia's plans.

Deliverance

2017-06-08, 03:16 AM

The Blood War should die because it exists solely as an expression of "Law versus Chaos" which is a stupid and pointless distinction that should also die. Instead, you can just have demon princes and devil lords fight each other at various scales for various reasons. Humans have managed to produce all of the wars in history without any overarching reason, and we aren't even egotistical, shortsighted sociopaths who revel at the thought of conflict (well, mostly). If you need Demogorgon to fight Asmodeus, you can use any of the reasons that humans have fought over all of history like "he had land I wanted" or "we both wanted to marry the same woman" or "a complicated series of alliances caused a small conflict to escalate because neither side was willing to back down".

Wanting to strip out fantastic elements such as the universe being based around "Law versus Chaos" from a fantasy universe in favour of assigning human motivations to everything sounds like a particularly restrictive sort of fantasy to me.

That's not to say that it can't make for exciting stories, it certainly can, but I see no good reason why this should be the default approach to fantasy, with fantasy that attempts to imagine non-human motivations branded as stupid and pointless.

Shadow_in_the_Mist

2017-06-08, 05:43 AM

This thread really reminds me of both why I didn't like the Blood War in Planescape and how utterly awful I've always found the 9-grid Alignment setup, even taking into account the fact it was literally rewritten between 2nd and 3rd editions.

Personally, OP, I use the Blood War in my settings based on my interpretation of the World Axis depiction of it:

Firstly, the Blood War is fought not so much over abstract ideals (although those are also important; Devils want to conquer everything, Demons want to annihilate everything, these are not compatible viewpoints) as over a direct source of conflict between the two races. Asmodeus wants to secure the Seed of Evil, the literal Heart of the Abyss; a small sliver gave him the power to murder and usurp a god, what might a greater amount do? The Demons object to this; the Seed of Evil is the birthing source of all demon-kind, and this makes it the closest thing they can conceive of to "sacred" - plus, if it was somehow destroyed, then maybe the Abyss, or at least all demons, would cease to exist.

Secondly, the Blood War is not the be-all, end-all of planar matters. When it's in its cold phase, it's equivalent to the wars rocking the 3rd world countries; hardly anybody on the planar stage pays any attention to it. When it's hot, it's definitely important, but it's not dominating everybody's minds - think the current war against ISAL.

Thirdly, the major reason for #2 is that Demons and Devils are the enemy of every other race in the multiverse, and they both know it. That's even why they have cold phases in the Blood War; genies, elementals, primordials, archfae, shadow-lords, celestials, every other major power in the multiverse is waiting to sweep in and crush the weakened "victor" of the Blood War. There's no grand alliance of all such races as such, but the fact is, if the multiverse were to unite for anything, it'd be to annihilate the broken remnants of both fiendish factions.

Nifft

2017-06-08, 12:08 PM

Here's what I did for a game where I wanted the Blood War to be significant:

The Time Before Gods: The River of Souls (Oceanus) ran from the Silver Sea through the upper planes into the deeps of Faerie, and then the water was harrowed into mist as it fell through the winds of Pandemonium, until finally the purified soul-waters rained down upon Arcadia, which is a watershed into the Silver Sea. (The method for purification was not important and was never specified.)

The Guardienals, Couatls, Lillends, and Fey arose naturally from these planes.

Something Bad Happened: Perhaps it was a single greedy individual. Perhaps it was a concerted effort by an entire world of mortals, at war with another mortal world. Somehow, the flow of the river of souls was diverted -- perverted -- and instead of being purified, most of the tainted soul-energy flowed from Faerie into the Abyss, where it gave rise to the multitudinous races of demons.

Perhaps the layers of the Abyss are uncountable because new ones calve off as the very concept of corruption corrupts itself, and the myriad layers are merely different interpretations of the central corruption theme.

Or perhaps each of the uncountable layers of the Abyss was once a mortal world, which each fell to the invading demonic armies -- and each species of demon was once a mortal race, who fell.

It cannot be denied that the ever-multiplying, ever-mutating, uncountable races of demons took one mortal world after another. They did not kill those worlds, for chaos is not content with slaughter -- that's just lawful propaganda. Rather, the demons sought to corrupt these worlds, for corruption was their origin and their destiny.

Something Good Happened: The more militant celestials were created: angels and archons. Maybe the gods began to exist around this time, too. The most powerful angels might know. They might even know how and why these new, militant celestials came to be. Were they forged by mortal hands? Were they a natural defense mechanism against the aggression of the Abyss? Were they the first early creation of the new gods?

At any rate, these new, militant celestials went to war against the demons.

Something Bad Happened: Turns out being in a war against demons isn't good for your soul. When you're a celestial made of soul, that means it's not good for your you.

We don't know precisely how or why, and the remaining elder celestials aren't telling, but somehow a large number of the most militant celestials fell and became diabolical fiends.

The river Styx is their victory: and outwelling of soul-stuff from the Abyss, through a chain of purification layers, and finally falling into Hell. Unlike the other soul-rivers, the waters of the river Styx have an unwavering destination, from which they do not ever return. This gathering of power within the pit of Nessus makes the devils of Hell individually more powerful, and they need it, since they are vastly out-numbered by the hordes of demons from the Abyss.

Before the Styx was gouged, the multiverse was slowly falling into corruption, as the Abyss came to dominate the flow of soul-stuff. After the Styx, the multiverse is simultaneously slowly falling into death, as soul-stuff is gathered in the lawful stillness of the Pit.

Something Worse Happened: The Undead were first fashioned in the Hells, as incorruptable soul-less shock-troops -- a way to battle the Abyss which the Abyss could not corrupt and turn against them; mindless slaves that were perfectly loyal.

Those poor, innocent devils.

The Abyss corrupted the very concept of death, creating intelligent undead which could spawn more of their own kind, eventually even mutating into new strains of undead. From ghoul to ghast, from wight to shadow: the newest horrors of the Abyss were a plague on the worlds of the material plane to an even greater degree than demons themselves had been.

Abyss
Hell

Life, Horror, Strength, Corruption
Domination, Contracts, Power, Death

Seduction is victory. Sedition is victory. Slaughter is a loss, but may be an acceptable loss. Victory will come through change and expansion.
Would rather kill an entire world than let it be taken by demons. Would rather kill you and own your re-animated corpse than let you escape. Domination is victory.

Roll For Initiative: This is where play begins. The universe is (slowly, quietly) falling into corruption and death. The Heavens were less powerful than the Abyss even before their best & brightest left to play for a new team (i.e. before the devils fell). Now, the Heavens dedicate their efforts to keeping mortals relatively unmolested, and hope that mortal hands can fix what (possibly) mortal hands broke.

Millstone85

2017-06-08, 05:05 PM

There's no absurdity. Magic does weird stuff, but so does our physics. The idea that "make fire with your mind" is somehow "absurd" but black holes are not is just a function of your point of reference. The scholars of D&Dland presumably consider fireball a perfectly explicable part of the world, but view the idea of a mass so dense not even light can escape from it as absurd.Alright so I didn't get my point across at all. My bad.

I wasn't calling magic an absurdity because it allows the mental summon of fire or any such thing. I could have, but I was comparing it to sci-fi tech that does the same thing. Teleportation circles, teleportation devices, same initial suspension of disbelief.

What I was actually referring to is the aspect of magic that you seem to regard as absurd here. The notion that magic is somehow not another aspect of nature, but something beyond it, something supernatural. The notion that magic doesn't run on any particular set of physical laws, but rather on principles that are metaphysical.

And yes, it might make as much sense as saying "On a scale of 1 to 10, this goes up to 11". But it is part of what is expected when a story involves magic. I have seen some interesting discussions on this recently with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Is Stephen Strange using "real magic", or is it "merely" extradimensional energies that bend to the human will? Is Robbie Reyes possessed by an actual demon from Hell, or just another kind of alien entity? It is a distinction people care about.

Now, you can absolutely approach even a setting like the Forgotten Realms with the idea that such a distinction shouldn't even be considered. Here is a world with things like kinetic energy and necrotic energy, both studied by mages using the wizarding method. But then, I tell you, this fantasy is starting to sound just a little sci-fi.

Though I guess that's not all that important to this thread.

Now you've just got law on both sides. It's (essentially) a state/federal type distinction. Certainly, the laws passed in Denver may conflict with those passed in Washington, but both are laws.I will admit that the picture I proposed, with Mechanus as the current order of the multiverse and Limbo as a larger range of possibilities, might actually work better with the Great Wheel versus the Far Realm. Well, my favored interpretation of the Far Realm.

Why not though? The game presents Law/Chaos and Good/Evil as equal axes of disagreement. If I fight Evil people because I am Good, why shouldn't I fight Lawful people because I am Chaotic. If Law/Chaos is meaningless for the Good people and meaningful for the Evil people because of traits not inherent to it, it should be removed because it's not doing anything. The demons are fighting the devils because both sides are Evil, not because one side is Lawful and the other Chaotic.The game may sometimes try to present Law/Chaos and Good/Evil as equal axes of disagreement, but I do not find its efforts very convincing.

And I am all for a D&D multiverse with two fundamental pillars, be they Law and Chaos, or the Astral and the Elemental, or Light and Darkness, or what yin-yang have you, and then Good as the expression of their potential for harmony, and Evil as their failure to find it. I think it makes for a cool creation myth.