afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VII

[Dalmosh]

Do the khen-zai build their pyramids wholecloth out of ethereal protomatter, or are they originally structures from the Prime Material Plane that have been planeshifted into the Ethereal?

[Alea]

So how the devils got involved in the Blood Wars anyway?

There’s some dark out there (that most likely includes both bits of truth and heavy doses of Asmodeus’s propaganda) that the baatezu (the current rulers of Hell) got their start when Asmodeus—then an angel—proposed that he would take over the then-empty plane of Baator as a staging ground for fighting back the demons, which the forces of Law were only beginning to suspect were infinite. He would also provide a negative incentive—punishment—for mortals, to keep them following the Law. All he asked in return was the opportunity to harvest power from the souls of the damned that he punished, so that he could maintain this operation and pursue the war with the demons. The only alternative, he said, was to make Asmodeus himself into an independent deity of great power, which of course the other deities did not wish to do.

The deities of Law agreed to these terms, and signed the so-called Pact Primeval. In so doing, they vastly underestimated the power of souls, and also never considered that the devils would actively seek out and corrupt mortals to fuel their engine. And Asmodeus, of course, is absolutely Lawful, so he upholds his end of the terms in the Pact Primeval to a T—hence the Blood War. No one can claim that Hell is skimping on its duties to fight the Abyss.

As for why Baator was empty before the Pact Primeval, why its original inhabitants, the ancient baatorians, are nowhere to be found, no one knows. They were gone long before Asmodeus showed up, and that was an era in which Good and Evil were still novel concepts, and mortal life was in its infancy. But scholars who are aware of this distinction make the effort to refer to the current ruling caste of devils as baatezu, to distinguish them from those baatorians.

[Mechalich]

Do the khen-zai build their pyramids wholecloth out of ethereal protomatter, or are they originally structures from the Prime Material Plane that have been planeshifted into the Ethereal?

Canonically, who knows. Accordingly the self-appointed guy who wrote the book on Ethergaunts (which happens to be me), the former, because the Ethergaunts did not actually adopt their present forms until after leaving the Prime Material. Also, I devised it such that Ethergaunt structures were made out of a sort of modular nanotech that was almost impossibly strong when commanded to be inert but could be directly manipulated by Ethergaunts to reconfigure almost immediately.

[Bartmanhomer]

Is there a domain spell for honesty and truth?

[afroakuma]

Who started the Blood Wars anyway? The devils or the demons?

Yep

Like, if someone actually managed to collect all 7 dragon b... pieces of the rod of law to free Miska from his timeout corner in Pandemonium

I mean, that's a whole 2E module - The Rod of Seven Parts. If Miska is freed, the Queen of Chaos resumes the War of Law and Chaos. Certain players would resist immediate involvement - surely one ancient tanar'ri lord cannot represent so great a fulcrum - but the vaati will move against him in short order, and unless Miska is defeated, matters will escalate.

or Sertrous successfully resurrected and such.

He takes back his layer, annnnd... not a ton else. The Queen of Chaos has retreated and the time of obyriths is still pretty much behind us. Likely he entrenches himself with some yuan-ti worshipers and maybe branches out, plots to eat a world or two to grow in power...

Do the khen-zai build their pyramids wholecloth out of ethereal protomatter, or are they originally structures from the Prime Material Plane that have been planeshifted into the Ethereal?

The material hails from the Prime and other planes; whether the structures themselves were originally constructed there or not... I would expect most, if not all, ethergaunt structures were originally built on the Ethereal from imported material.

Is there a domain spell for honesty and truth?

Truth domain can be found in Races of Eberron. It incorporates a few spells specific to that book - force shapechange, illusion purge, and mass true seeing.

[ShurikVch]

Is there a domain spell for honesty and truth?

Besides aforementioned, there are also Inquisition and Mind domains from Complete Divine/Spell Compendium, and - amusingly - Commerce from Eberron Campaign Setting: all of them have at least one from Discern Lies, True Seeing, and Zone of Truth spells, and some also give bonus on Sense Motive checks

He takes back his layer, annnnd... not a ton else. The Queen of Chaos has retreated and the time of obyriths is still pretty much behind us.

Side question: what if, along with Sertrous resurrection and Miska liberation, Demogorgon - being defeated by the result of the Savage Tide Adventure Path - would be replaced with Obox-ob?

[Bartmanhomer]

Besides aforementioned, there are also Inquisition and Mind domains from Complete Divine/Spell Compendium, and - amusingly - Commerce from Eberron Campaign Setting: all of them have at least one from Discern Lies, True Seeing, and Zone of Truth spells, and some also give bonus on Sense Motive checks

Thank you for the additional information.

[Jowgen]

How would you characterise the level of sentience displayed by the Abyss?

I don't think there's any mention anywhere of anyone speaking/communing with the abyss itself, but I do distinctly recall cattered about mentions about the Abyss itself having a "will", as well as its individual layers having something akin to a personality maybe, but I'm not to clear on the details.

Any insight his afro-ness would deem fit to bequeath would be most appreciated.

[Bartmanhomer]

Are there any domain spells for science and technology?

[Thurbane]

Are there any domain spells for science and technology?

Closest I can think of is Artifice domain (ECS p.104) or Craft domain (SC p.272), but they are more focused on magic items than tech. There's two spells in the Craft domain in particular: Fantastic Machine, and Greater Fantastic Machine, which may be appropriate.

[satorian]

Closest I can think of is Artifice domain (ECS p.104) or Craft domain (SC p.272), but they are more focused on magic items than tech. There's two spells in the Craft domain in particular: Fantastic Machine, and Greater Fantastic Machine, which may be appropriate.

The Gnome domain also has Fantastic Machine.

[afroakuma]

Side question: what if, along with Sertrous resurrection and Miska liberation, Demogorgon - being defeated by the result of the Savage Tide Adventure Path - would be replaced with Obox-ob?

I mean at this point you're just asking me to make something up. With the players you're naming, it sounds like you're gunning for a particular outcome, but I have no idea what.

How would you characterise the level of sentience displayed by the Abyss?

Not entirely sure how to approach answering this question.

[Jowgen]

Not entirely sure how to approach answering this question.

Maybe go by past examples of when the abyss itself did "stuff" and try to infer its mental faculties from that?

Like, from the emergence of the Loumara we can gather that it can sense powerful damage/intrusion to itself and react defensively, so from that we know it can at the very least perceive its own integrity, recognise threat to that integrity, has a desire for self preservation, and has the ability to act on that desire violently.

What other instances of stuff that would fit the cateogry of "behaviour" have there been?

[gkathellar]

Maybe go by past examples of when the abyss itself did "stuff" and try to infer its mental faculties from that?

Like, from the emergence of the Loumara we can gather that it can sense powerful damage/intrusion to itself and react defensively, so from that we know it can at the very least perceive its own integrity, recognise threat to that integrity, has a desire for self preservation, and has the ability to act on that desire violently.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that - after all, an immune system can recognize outside threats, adapt to them, and kill them dead, all without any guiding intelligence to speak of. What we definitely know is that the Abyss responds to changes in its conditions in a way that we might describe as “organic” - but that need not imply a guiding intellect.

[Bartmanhomer]

Was Boccob a great grandmaster at chess? I was wondering because someone made a thread about chess in D&D 3.5

[Dalmosh]

What would a typical soul larva collecting operation be comprised of in the Grey Wastes, and what equipment/facilities would they need?

Faces of Evil mentions that larvae arise on all the Lower Planes, was this retconned away to only the Grey Wastes in 3rd ed?

Why would Tanar'ri and Baatezu buy larvae from someone else instead of just collecting soul shells or manes from their own plane?

[Khedrac]

Was Boccob a great grandmaster at chess? I was wondering because someone made a thread about chess in D&D 3.5

Highly unlikely - his moniker is "The Uncaring" because he isn't interested in stuff outside of his portfolio which is magic (his other title is Archmage of the gods). So, why would he waste time on a wargame that has nothing to do with magic (and may not even exist in Greyhawk)?

[Tzardok]

What would a typical soul larva collecting operation be comprised of in the Grey Wastes, and what equipment/facilities would they need?

The easiest way to do this is search for larvae, and then put them in a bag. That won't get you a lot, because those things are big, but a medium character should be able to catch two or three that way. For bigger opperations you need a few friends who'll help you herd them where you want them to go (just prod them until they do as you want). Afterwards you can put them in cages or crates and then travel by wagon. Nighthags or fiends may have some ability to herd them without help, like some kind of Piper.

Faces of Evil mentions that larvae arise on all the Lower Planes, was this retconned away to only the Grey Wastes in 3rd ed?

It's inconsistent between books. Manual of the planes for example only mentions them in Hades, Fiendish Codex 1 on the other hand also mentions them in the Abyss.

Why would Tanar'ri and Baatezu buy larvae from someone else instead of just collecting soul shells or manes from their own plane?

Oh, they do collect them. It's just that additional souls are always nice. I don't know wether larvae from other planes can be converted into additional Baatezu or Tana'ri (the Yugoloth at least can convert larvae of at least two different planes), but souls are a nice fuel for powering certain fiendish spells, rituals, machinery etc. Powerful fiends also like to snack on souls (they are fiendishly delicious! ) In both those cases you don't want to waste the souls you can use for conversion if you can help it, do you?

[Alea]

Highly unlikely - his moniker is "The Uncaring" because he isn't interested in stuff outside of his portfolio which is magic (his other title is Archmage of the gods). So, why would he waste time on a wargame that has nothing to do with magic (and may not even exist in Greyhawk)?

It doesn’t seem altogether unlikely that a god of intellect and knowledge could solve chess during the time he’s allotted for a given game. If nothing else, throwing together an epic spell that simulates and evolves chess strategy à la modern neural networks seems entirely within his capabilities.

The hard part would be convincing him to play a game and care about winning it, but that’s beyond the scope of the question.

But ultimately, the question is kind of moot, because it seems to me that Boccob simply has access to resources that makes a question about his current skills irrelevant—if he needs the skills, he can get them.

[Jowgen]

It doesn’t necessarily mean that - after all, an immune system can recognize outside threats, adapt to them, and kill them dead, all without any guiding intelligence to speak of. What we definitely know is that the Abyss responds to changes in its conditions in a way that we might describe as “organic” - but that need not imply a guiding intellect.

True enough, the abyss might well just act as a non-sentient organism; but considering how adamant Tulket nor Ahm (FCI) is about the Abyss being sentient, I figured there might be something to it, hence my question to his Afro-ness on the topic.

[Tzardok]

True enough, the abyss might well just act as a non-sentient organism; but considering how adamant Tulket nor Ahm (FCI) is about the Abyss being sentient, I figured there might be something to it, hence my question to his Afro-ness on the topic.

There are people adamant about the Illuminati controlling the government, too. Conviction doesn't necessarily mean truth, not even in the planes.

[Talakeal]

Ma Yuan the God Killer.

Does anyone know anything about him?

Is he mentioned anywhere outside of his write-up in 1E Deities and Demigods and a brief mention in the fiendish codex?

Does he have a RL mythological counterpart? If not, what was the inspiration for this guy?

Thanks!

[redking]

Canonically, who knows. Accordingly the self-appointed guy who wrote the book on Ethergaunts (which happens to be me), the former, because the Ethergaunts did not actually adopt their present forms until after leaving the Prime Material. Also, I devised it such that Ethergaunt structures were made out of a sort of modular nanotech that was almost impossibly strong when commanded to be inert but could be directly manipulated by Ethergaunts to reconfigure almost immediately.

I discovered this content a while ago, and boy, was it good. I wasn't too keen on Ethergaunts until I saw Mechalich's ecology of the Ethergaunts. Do an update with a bit of additional information and a nice PDF and perhaps the Black Ethergaunts will see fit to promote your progeny.

[Bartmanhomer]

How are the three dragon deities Astilabor, Chronepsis and Sardior relationship? All three of the dragon deities are True Neutral so they must have a mutual relationship even if they disagree at some point.

[Gotham]

Hey there!

got a large armful of questions but I'll leave it with these 3 for now:

How & When did the Inner Planes form (and what was the basic mechanism of that)? I know at one point the 4 elements + the Energy planes were sortof mishmashing to make teh Shadow demi-plane, and the planes of steam and dust, but since the Steam and Dust planes were made by the opposites touching, that still leaves the question of where those base elemental planes came from.

You've said you don't believe the Twin Serpent origin is accurate; can you give me some idea of why it doesn't fit as a potential origin of the Great Wheel?

Cryonax; what's up with the frickin' weirdo? He's listed 'on-par' with the Big 4 bad Archomentals, but he's a Para- Archomental. He's not made of ice, he's a weird Yeti cosplaying as demogorgon. He operates somewhat like the big 4 but doesn't seem to worship the Elder Elemental Eye, as least as far as his participation in the Tomb of EE indicates. I repeat; What's up with this frickin' weirdo?

[Gotham]

woo forums back up here's hoping for a return of Afro

[Dalmosh]

Here's hoping right? This is a bit chicken and egg but...

When the main pantheons of deities first became involved with the Prime worlds, did this simply entail profound cultural shifts and new powers (divine magic) in the races and cultures that worshipped them, or did these new gods directly rewrite the nature, rules, physics, geography etc of the prime worlds themselves?

Was the Prime Material Plane a fundamentally different place in the godless early days beforehand when the aboleth and khen-zai empires were in their prime, and mortals had no clerical magic or interaction with Gods?

Were the basic planar traits, physics and geography of these worlds already pretty much locked in from the start by the Overdeities responsible for each Crystal Sphere?

[Edreyn]

Hello again.
I don't remember if I said thank you for my earlier questions, so I'll say it now. Thank you for answers to my older questions.

I have some new questions about Sigil lore.

Dabuses:
1) Are dabuses mortals or outsiders?
2) Do they have more then one gender like most of creatures? Are they born like humans, or formed by some other means already as adults? Do they die from old age? If I remember correctly Lady punished one of dabuses for worshiping Aoskar, but that was long ago, and he is still alive.
3) They usually construct new buildings, not caring about how locals treat it. I know from books that everyone builds what he wants in Sigil, and can use any material. But what material dabuses use? Is there some kind of "generic" material for them?

Athar
4) How Athar faction and Lady treat each other? How come that the very presence of Lady doesn't cause Athar to lose their faith in their ideology? They know for sure that she exists and that she is literally almighty. And the other way around - shouldn't the Athar rejection to accept divinity of any god anger Lady?

Sigil
5) Is there any information what Sigil terrain originally was? There are countless layers of streets one upon another, but what it was from the beginning?

Not about Sigil lore:
6) Demiplanes are stated to be finite. How the "edge" of demiplane visually look? What happens if someone tries to go through it?
7) Are there any known evil outsiders that literally climbed from the bottom to the top?
8) Is there any limit to how long an outsider can live?

[Tzardok]

Athar
4) How Athar faction and Lady treat each other? How come that the very presence of Lady doesn't cause Athar to lose their faith in their ideology? They know for sure that she exists and that she is literally almighty. And the other way around - shouldn't the Athar rejection to accept divinity of any god anger Lady?

I do not see how you could arrive at that conclusion. The Athar's ideology is that the "gods" may be powerful, but they aren't worthy of being called gods. To them, the Lady is proof of their ideology: "The Lady is powerful enough to tell the so called 'gods' to sit down and shut up, and she even claims to not be divine. Isn't that proof enough that the 'gods' aren't divine?"
And the other way round: why should the Lady care what those guys believe?

Sigil
5) Is there any information what Sigil terrain originally was? There are countless layers of streets one upon another, but what it was from the beginning?

Don't quote me on that, but I think when Sigil was discovered, it already was a city.

6) Demiplanes are stated to be finite. How the "edge" of demiplane visually look? What happens if someone tries to go through it?

Depends on the plane. Some have a wall that can't be pierced. Some have foggy banks that deposit were you started when entering, like the Lost Woods in Legend of Zelda. Others are spherical, like our planet, so they don't have a border at all, but still are finite.

7) Are there any known evil outsiders that literally climbed from the bottom to the top?

Are you talking about fiends becoming good aligned? There are a few, like that ultroloth in the gate town to Elysium, or that succubus paladin.
Or are you talking about fiends starting at the lowest rank of their races and then rising to the highest rank? In that case the most infamous example would be Orcus.

8) Is there any limit to how long an outsider can live?

Depends on the species. Bariaurs and mephits have a natural live span, I think, but exemplars are immortal.

[Edreyn]

Thank you for answering. New questions now:

I do not see how you could arrive at that conclusion. The Athar's ideology is that the "gods" may be powerful, but they aren't worthy of being called gods. To them, the Lady is proof of their ideology: "The Lady is powerful enough to tell the so called 'gods' to sit down and shut up, and she even claims to not be divine. Isn't that proof enough that the 'gods' aren't divine?"

Yes, this seems quite logical. Just one question about "Lady claims to not being divine". But the Lady never actually said anything to anyone, not even of not being divine. Or I am wrong?

Don't quote me on that, but I think when Sigil was discovered, it already was a city.

In this case, who discovered it, and who already lived there?

This makes a new question - what is the first officially recorded event in Sigil history?

Or are you talking about fiends starting at the lowest rank of their races and then rising to the highest rank? In that case the most infamous example would be Orcus.

Yes, it were ranks I meant, no alignment. So, Orcus? Will try looking for something about him.