3.5 - Do Demons go home when slain?

[Warlawk]

So this concept has been around for a very long time, I know for our group at least it comes from the Icewind dale trilogy where the demon is slain and banished to his home plane for 100 years. We are playing in a game now where this is actually relevant and I was poking around the rule books and cannot find anything at all indicating that they are sent home when slain. Now a summoned creature would be, but the Vrock in question was not summoned but permanently on the material plane.

Extraplanar, Outsider and Demon entries in the monster manual don't seem to have anything indicating that said demon would evaporate not leaving a body behind and be returned to the abyss. Anyone able to cite a reference for that happening? Would love to get to animate this sucker if it actually leaves behind a body! :smalltongue:

[Crake]

Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, page 9, Heading: Death, Subheading: Outside the Abyss:


Outside the Abyss: If a demon is killed on another plane, its body eventually returns to the Abyss—unless trapped through magical means, such as a dimensional anchor spell. (See the Demonic Death Throes sidebar for more details on how demon bodies sometimes disappear.) No matter what happens to the demon’s body, if it is killed outside the Abyss, its “essence” falls back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, where it is then be reformed as a new demon.
It is unclear whether these reincarnated demons begin again at the bottom of the cycle, or if they are just demoted, but everyone seems certain that death can only be seen as a failure for a demon, so it is unlikely to avoid punishment altogether. Thus, when a demon dies on another plane, it risks falling back into the general pool of demonspawn and can fi nd itself “demoted” in power and essence, which is not to be taken lightly. For example, a vrock sent to wreak havoc on the Material Plane faces a very real danger if it fails in its mission. If the PCs defeat it and send it shrieking back to the Abyss, it can fi nd itself back in the body of a dretch, a rutterkin, or even a mane. Even balors risk this eternal cycle when they battle for their Abyssal lords. Only the direct intervention of a demon prince can possibly spare this punishment.
The important exception to all of this occurs when a demon is summoned out of the Abyss magically, in which case it simply returns unharmed when the spell ends (or when the demon is destroyed), no matter what happens to it in the meantime. Thus, demons summoned to the Material Plane have little fear of death.

To add, the demonic death throes table ranges from "absolutely nothing left of the body" to "tar-like residue", "Ash-covered skeleton" and a 1/20 chance for the body to just be left dead as if nothing happened.

[Warlawk]

Thank you!

[ayvango]

Is that death behavior common for all outsiders, or demon-specific?

[DrMotives]

Is that death behavior common for all outsiders, or demon-specific?

The summoned monster thing is universal, anything summoned with a summoning spell works that way. For the general thing about demons returning to their home planes, I don't know of a 3.x quote for all outsiders, but definitely all previous editions as well as the Eberron setting in particular use that ruling for all outsiders.

[Malphegor]

I know Fiendbinders’ truename summons die for real and do not return to their native plane on death, which presumably means that regular succubi, cauchemar, and suchforth do... But Tome of Magic is a mess barely sensible for use with other books so it might be anomalous.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I wonder if there's some way to permanently weaken the Abyss when you destroy a demon, instead of sending the demon's essence right back to it when the thing dies. What would happen if you forcefully change a demon's alignment to Good (or, to a lesser extent, Neutral), somehow remove the [Evil] subtype, and then kill it? Perhaps you could subdue a demon, polymorph any object it into something else (thus removing the above subtype permanently), and then kill it? I'm pretty sure we're getting into houserule territory here. Anyone have anything more concrete?

Incubus'd by the fiendbinder, though I'd like to find more than just that.

The Abyss is infinite, so changing the alignment of huge chunks of the landscape and forcing it into other planes probably isn't going to amount to much in the long run, since any finite chunk, no matter how large, is still infinitely small in comparison to infinity. Maybe find a way to change a larger infinity than the Abyss's infinity? Of course, you'd have to simultaneously do the same with the Hells as well, to prevent the devils from taking advantage.

[ViperMagnum357]

I wonder if there's some way to permanently weaken the Abyss when you destroy a demon, instead of sending the demon's essence right back to it when the thing dies. What would happen if you forcefully change a demon's alignment to Good (or, to a lesser extent, Neutral), somehow remove the [Evil] subtype, and then kill it? Perhaps you could subdue a demon, polymorph any object it into something else (thus removing the above subtype permanently), and then kill it? I'm pretty sure we're getting into houserule territory here. Anyone have anything more concrete?

Incubus'd by the fiendbinder, though I'd like to find more than just that.

The Abyss is infinite, so changing the alignment of huge chunks of the landscape and forcing it into other planes probably isn't going to amount to much in the long run, since any finite chunk, no matter how large, is still infinitely small in comparison to infinity. Maybe find a way to change a larger infinity than the Abyss's infinity? Of course, you'd have to simultaneously do the same with the Hells as well, to prevent the devils from taking advantage.

Well, killing a Demon on the Abyss should normally kill that specific Demon permanently-the question is what happens to the energy returned to the Abyss. If it just gets pooled then used into new demons, then killing them at all seems a waste of time and energy. If that energy is mostly used for turning new petitioners into active Manes and providing the energy for Demons to promote into new forms, it might be worthwhile if done on a large scale.

If you could not cut off the flow of energy, then you could instead trap it or burn it up. Hunting down Demons and trapping them indefinitely could work. Also, the souls Manes are created from can be permanently destroyed by preparing them and using them to craft magic items or cast spells with XP components. Intercepting them before they congeal into Manes, to cut off the flow of new demons, is probably the simplest and most time consuming method of permanently putting a dent in the Abyss and the numbers of its denizens.