Following the events of the unscheduled modron march, the Modrons became tainted with...chaos. They no longer were truely perfect creatures of law. The fact that a Tanar-ric power served as primus for a short while caused this catastrophic event to occur.
If the modron race was messed up that badly by Orcus, though, it'd be equally interesting to explore how much Orcus was messed up by the modrons. The Great Modron March hinted that Orcus had gained, during his time as the One and Prime, a glimmering of ethics, and guilt, and other alien feelings he hadn't previously known existed. Infected by law, he might eventually evolve into a very different demon.
Its my thought that when he served as Primus he was linked to the Modron energy pool...
That's right...
Now, "The Deva Spark" presents us with a somewhat similar (if not neccessarily equivalent) scenario, and there the (power-created) embodiment of an alignment can apparently affect another creature of a different alignment to become more like it. Presumably, in such a match, most any given Modron, Primus and maybe Secundi aside, would seem likely to become drawn towards Orcus's alignment. Of course, it is likely enough that no such fusion took place...
In fact, in the end, it would seem that the events of "TGMM" would have required Orcus/Tenebrous to be far more like Primus than the Modrons would have needed to become like him. (Indeed, Modrons running around acting Tanar'ri-like would have been sure to draw all kinds of suspicion, somewhat ruining the whole point of seizing Primus' position in the first place...). So, while disturbances may have been left in the structure of the Modrons, it seems likely that Orcus, if anyone, was the one who was left with the most lasting impression.
Unless his death and resurrection from the Astral undid it alll...
So, in short: who knows?!
Why the Modrons are the exemplars of Mechanus no longer
It can be explained simply ...
Who says they're not? AFAIK, in most Planescape games, the modrons are alive and well, and in charge of the gears.
Of course, if you want them to step down and leave the place under the control of giant ants, that "Fat Demon Did It" explanation works as well as any... in fact, it beats the RL explanation by a longshot.
The orcus taint is probably the best explanation if you want to take modrons out of the big picture, but that hasn't been suggested in any official capacity.
I think that the most likely explanation is "r0bots are teh stoopid. ANTZ ROCKS!"
That doesn't explain inevitables, though.
Inevitables are golems, not robots. Don't they teach you kids anything in school these days :P
Sadly, I flunked golem-making twice (which is why I had to change my major from Kabbala to Tantra). My flesh golems kept rampaging and demanding I make them brides.
I'll defer to your greater knowledge of constructs.
Everyone knows that Orcus is a dead rock floating in the astral plane, the modrons are the unquestioned rulers of Mechanus, ants are a minor annoyance easily solved with a can of raid, and inevitables are just tools to be used by the modrons.
That is the way it is and the way it should be. Any other thinking is dangerous and has no place in properly ordered society. No piddly little demon lord can take down the greatness that are the modrons. That little unscheduled march was just an easily fixed system error. Everything got rebooted and all is right with the multiverse.
Everyone knows that Orcus is a dead rock floating in the astral plane,
Ah...here you are wrong...Orcus was resurrected as Tenebrous, an undead demon, and then took his revenge and reclaimed his post as top dog on Thanatos. So, Orcus is "alive" and well....
:DAh...here you are wrong...Orcus was resurrected as Tenebrous, an undead demon, and then took his revenge and reclaimed his post as top dog on Thanatos. So, Orcus is "alive" and well....
Is there a published module/adventure regarding Orcus/Tenebrous that has events that take place after Dead Gods? Your post leads me to believe that this is so, but I have not seen anything.
"guess whos back, back again, orcus' back, back again, guess whos back, guess whos back, guess whos back,............"
from what I remember orcus' servent completed enough of the ritual to bring him back as demon prince instead of a god, he is back in control of his layer of the abyss, and he has no idea (we assume) that his Lt. the ghoul king is under control of the the demon prince of gnolls.
The orcus taint story feels so much better than the truth, one of the game designers doesn't like them and reduced them to a web enhancement instead of putting them in MM 1/2/3, or fiend folio, manual of the planes, not even planar handbook (thats like six books at least could have been have modrons), although either explanation is an sorry way for a kewl race to get treated so.
Another thing that bugs me, is, if the Modrons lost their position, how did, or why did, the Formians go from Lawful Good natives of Arcadia to the new exemplars of law?
Formians were actually listed as Lawful Neutral with good tendencies in 2e.
They replaced modrons in the Monster Manual because there are less formian castes, so they could save space. The original intention was to put modrons in the Manual of the Planes. Modrons are in the Manual of the Planes, but again their stats were cut for reasons of space.
At that point, someone at Wizards decided modrons were stupid, so they don't appear anywhere after the MotP except in a web enhancement.
Formians, on the other hand, are still peaceful and good-inclined in their native plane of Arcadia, according to the Manual of the Planes. They only become aggressive and expansionist in Mechanus and elsewhere. This was also true in 2e, which said "...formians found on the Prime make war on each other, [but] Arcadian formians of different hives have learned to live together peaceably."
The implication is that it's the natural harmony of Arcadia that makes formians peaceable, not anything inherent in the species.
Formians originally appeared in the 1st edition Monster Manual II, where they were described as Lawful Neutral and warlike. Arcadia (or any outer plane) was not mentioned in their original description.
The new monsters are really too concentrated on killing and that makes lazy DM-s (like me) use them like that and most combat has nothing to do with the actual adventure because it's mostly like "and then you walk through the forest and OUT OF NOWHERE COMES AN ACHAIERAI FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!!! ROLL INITIATIVE!!!!!!1". And then later I find out they're not just a bunch of stupid birds that hang around acheron and fart insanity poison but they have a whole evil culture thing and rust dragons as pets and everything :embarrass
Okay, they're improving with Eberron, but when the 3ed started, all the worldbooks were terribly short.