Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Oct 31, 2003 9:04:35	Can anyone tell me who the Rilmani are? I know they are true neutral creatures, but nothing more. Where do they live? How many are they?
#2 caoslayer Oct 31, 2003 9:53:43	you can find them in a monster compendium, the two or the three. also you can try to search in google (try to type just "rilmani info" or "rilmani")
#3 zombiegleemax Oct 31, 2003 10:11:37	Thank you very much
#4 Shemeska_the_Marauder Oct 31, 2003 13:27:35	The Rilmani are the true neutral outsider race of the outer planes. They live in the Outlands, largely around the base of the infinate spire. Oddly enough, some say that their magic works at the base itself, or near to the base but not within the innermost ring. Truth or false, who knows. The Rilmani are largely insular and don't interact much with the other outsider races. Fairly enigmatic. Thats the face they present on the surface and what most believe. Hardly... The Rilmani believe in an active balance on the planes. In fact, proactive balance. They have agents and infiltrators on most every plane in order to subtley move events and planar politics to ensure that no one group or faction gains too much power over another. For instance, the Rilmani likely take steps to ensure the Blood War continually rages, and that neither Baatezu or Tanar'ri gains an upper hand. (if aware of it, the Yugoloths probably detest the Rilmani meddling in 'their war', but since they profit by its continuation they for the moment likely ignore it). Heck there's an Argenach Rilmani that serves, in disguise, as one of the servants of Shemeska The Marauder, an Arcanaloth in Sigil (and my namesake here on the boards) who sits as one of the most powerful people in the city, with contacts and influence among most all the group who call the city home or pass through it regularly. The perfect spy. [Jemorille the Exile. However he's arguably inept and has a larger ego than Shemeska. He may be there to both spy on her, and keep him from doing too much damage to the rest of the planes. Jemorille 'claimed' to have taught Rajaat the halfling magic upon Athas.(Dark Sun) He also claims that The Lady is his own unwilling pawn. Yeah.... no ego there...] The Rilmani also have agents within the Prime and even a subtype of Rilmani exclusive to the inner planes in order to keep 'balance' there as well when they can.
#5 bob_the_efreet Nov 02, 2003 14:43:16	As a 3E reference, some rilmani can be found in the Fiend Folio. I haven't seen them in 2nd edition, though, so I can't say if it's a good conversion or not.
#6 factol_rhys_dup Nov 02, 2003 16:18:44	Ah the pictures were so much better in 2e. I don't have the Fiend Folio, so I can't discuss the conversion itself. However, I didn't like any of the artwork from the FF as much as I did the artwork from the PSC's. Maybe I'm just DiTerlizzi-biased, but maybe everyone else isn't DiTerlizzi-biased enough. He made the setting look as awesome as the writers made it feel. Come to think of it, DiTerlizzi's illustrations did plenty to create the feel itself anyway. The rilmani went from being metallic-skinned paragons of ultimate Balance to pudgy, overweight, half-melted nudists. The artist did a good job with his other illustrations, but I can only hope that the statistical conversion did the rilmani a little more justice than their picture.
#7 incenjucar Nov 02, 2003 23:11:46	They didn't even keep the whole 'Klingon forehead' thing, which just made me twitch.
#8 lord_of_the_ninth_02 Nov 02, 2003 23:44:07	Rhys, you aren't the only oen who's biased towards Tony D. Of course, I don't see it as a bias, so much as a recognition of talent and of a gaming icon. As for the conversion itself, I don't really know enough about 2e rules to really say anything for sure, but they seem to ahve done a better job with the rilmani than they did with the Yugoloths ('cept the art, the yugoloth art wasn't half bad in the MotP). Oh yeah, they screwed up two things, MC II makes a point of people not being able to summon rilmani, but the FF says that cuprilachs can be summoned with tsummon monster IX and that Ferrumachs can be summoned with summon monster VII. Plus they got rid of their telepathy.
#9 Shemeska_the_Marauder Nov 03, 2003 0:42:37	Wayne Reynolds did a rather outstanding job on the art for the Yugoloths in the MotP. Well, except for that little thing with depicting the Nycaloth as having 4 arms... *chuckle* They only have 2, and the line about them having razorclawed limbs, was meant to be the 2 arms and the 2 feet, not 4 arms. *chuckle* But yeah, the Rilmani art was pretty bad in comparison to the Tony DiTerlizzi versions. And with respect to the being able to summon Rilmani... it shouldn't be possible. However the Rilmani in Planescape did have the knack of literally hitching rides on summoning spells and gating spells used to call powerful planar creatures to other planes in order to evaluate the use of the summoned creature, and perhaps to act as a counterweight to whatever encounter was happening. The immunity to summoning they had was because they didn't want to be called away to another plane, potentially disrupting their idea of balance in the planes. It should have stayed that way.
#10 caoslayer Nov 03, 2003 6:55:16	it is my imagination or almost all the monster´s art in 3e it is kind of "soulless", most creatures seems to be only ugly things to beat. of course there are exceptions, I really liked the art in Savage Species and Races of Faerun.
#11 sildatorak Nov 04, 2003 21:25:56	Wouldn't part of rilmani immunity to summoning be due to the magic-negating effects of the outlands? The level of spells that would be required to snag one would only be effective way out at the edge and the rilmani mainly live nearer the spire than that?
#12 sildatorak Nov 04, 2003 21:27:01	döppelpost
#13 zombiegleemax Nov 05, 2003 1:38:16	true, but rilmani travel the planes as well. Anyone not near the spire is as likely subject to a summoning spell as the berk next to him. It also depends on how you use summoning magic. I houserule that you need to know one of the creatures true names (tm) in order to succesfully summon a creature. Especially planar creatures. Maybe rilmani are more succesfull at keeping their true name dark.
#14 zombiegleemax Nov 05, 2003 1:41:24	apparently, it's contagious
#15 zombiegleemax Nov 05, 2003 3:18:10	Nearness to the spire doesn't stop you from being summoned, does it? In any case, their are only 4 ways to summon a creature: Summon Monster spell. Only works for certain creatures. Planar Binding spell. Requires a true name. Planar Ally spell. Gate spell.
#16 sildatorak Nov 05, 2003 3:25:19	Originally posted by nick012000 Nearness to the spire doesn't stop you from being summoned, does it? Well, nearness to the spire causes spells and magical effects to stop functioning, so I figured it would make sense for it to block summoning spells from reaching there as well. It would make sense for this to be so, otherwise the Athar would be cowering there in vane since any deity they had p***ed off could just whip off a modified summoning spell to snag them.
#17 zombiegleemax Nov 05, 2003 3:52:12	Well, not neccessarily. But then they could have been summoned from Sigil as well, so staying there was no protection either.
#18 sildatorak Nov 05, 2003 3:54:40	Nope, Sigil is sealed to summoning. Nothing gets in or out except by the Lady's will (or whim).