I was thinking that perhaps Asmodeus's blood created the Ancient Baatorians (assuming they existed in 2e lore, don't know) and that the Baatezu created by the Baenaloths ousted them, and the Serpent just kinda went along for the ride.
That raises other questions as well. In FR, all faithless souls are placed in the the Wall of Kelemvor's city. But according the Guide to Hell, souls that do not accept any god are reborn on the ninth layer of Baator regarless of alignment. Any guesses. In addition, it states that to be reborn on the plane matching your alignment, belief is required. I thought that you were either put into the wall (Torilian Primer) or you went to the plane matching your disposition. Apparently not. Anyone know what is going on here?
Originally posted by Tebryn14
Ok, so which is preferred? That Jazirian and the being now known as Asmodeus battled it out and their blood created the Couatl and Baatezu, respectively? Or that the Baernaloths created them from the flaw of chaos and law in the Yugoloths?
I was thinking that perhaps Asmodeus's blood created the Ancient Baatorians (assuming they existed in 2e lore, don't know) and that the Baatezu created by the Baenaloths ousted them, and the Serpent just kinda went along for the ride.
There's no reason it can't be both. I loathe the material in 'Guide to Hell' you're referring to, but it needn't be contradictory to the Baern creation myths.
Asmo's blood in the GtH created pit fiends loyal to him, though there's no mention at all of any other type of Baatezu, and these are likely only creations after the fact of the Baatezu's creation by the 'loths, their migration to Baator, and the displacement of the Baatorians. I don't like to link the Ancient Baatorians and Asmodeus at all. I also don't like to call Asmodeus 'The Serpent' because you risk confusion with THE Serpent of Vecna infamy, which isn't even a sentient being but Vecna's personification of magic. No link to Asmo.
I treat Asmo in anything I write or games I run as 'something different and utterly mysterious' with little elaboration. I prefer to see him as a deific level being that dates to somewhere around the time of the Baatezu migrations. He might be the first and most powerful of those original Yugoloth created Baatezu, or one of the Yugoloths that herded them, or a sentient extension of Baator itself formed due to the Baatezu conquering of Baator. With the influence of its new residents and masters, the plane may have simply expressed a personification of itself to match them in form and ideology. Though of course the plane still spawns Baatorians naturally, and given time and absence of Baatezu it likely would revert to its original state.
I always presumed that the Baern may have instigated their children to create the Baatezu for the sole purpose of sending the Baatezu to conquer Baator and olbiterate or at least cripple the future influence of the Ancient Baatorians on the face of evil in the multiverse. The Baern as representatives of pure NE may have seen the Ancient Baatorians as their only rivals of consequence on the lower planes. And so they conspired to destroy them and pave the way for their own chosen children to eventually dominate the future path and definition of evil in the multiverse.
You might also see Asmo and Jazirian as similar in some ways to the Baern, just themselves being the paragons of original LE and LG respectively as the Baern are of original NE. I shy away from placing such a position on Asmo and Jazirian however since I really don't like the way that dual serpent myth was written and sprung on everyone in GtH. Again, personal preferance. I may not use it in a game, but you can if it fits you.
That raises other questions as well. In FR, all faithless souls are placed in the the Wall of Kelemvor's city. But according the Guide to Hell, souls that do not accept any god are reborn on the ninth layer of Baator regarless of alignment. Any guesses. In addition, it states that to be reborn on the plane matching your alignment, belief is required. I thought that you were either put into the wall (Torilian Primer) or you went to the plane matching your disposition. Apparently not. Anyone know what is going on here?
Again, I don't like that part of GtH as it goes off on a jolly little ride of contradictions with that bit about faithlessness placing you in the bottom of Nessus. Faithlessness might result from apathy, insanity, or willing disbelief. Those would each place you in a number of different planes as petitioners and there's a strong basis backing that.
As far as Toril's rules on not having a patron power, you can treat it as prime's not being aware of planar mechanics, or special restrictions placed upon Toril by its resident overpower Ao upon those mortal petitioners from that sphere he controls. I don't have a problem with such special conditions on prime worlds. Heck Athas had an even more bizarre end place for petitioners since it was largely sealed off from the Outer planes.
Do you think it would make sense to say the perhaps Jazirian and Asmodeus did not create the Multiverse, but instead laid down it's laws, and perhaps pulled it into its current configuration. I think I'll be ignoring the armageddon part and the part about faithless, but I still like the idea of Asmodeus being a primal force of evil, a greater power, and not at full strength.
Perhaps the blood of Asmodeus created the first Lords of the Nine, since there have been several sets?
You could go with the part about the first set of the Lords of the 9 being sprung from Asmo's blood after his fall from wherever around the time of the Baatezu overtake of Baator. However it seems a tad at odds with the fact that they're far from loyal to him, only being loyal out of Asmo's power over them and not anything else. All of the Lords of the 9 are wholly self serving.
I don't like giving them both such wide reaching influence over the entire multiverse, or even the outer planes since it diminishes the role over law in the multiverse that Primus of the Modrons personifies. I don't like a being of LE or LG having such a place, they need to be LN in my book. I also like my overpowers to be beyond alignment considerations, and sort of a default true neutral if you must stat them for alignments. Ao, etc. Things of that caliber or beyond as well, such as The Lady of Pain (whatever She is, or whatever you wish to define or not define Her as), qualify into the 'beyond alignment' purposes for me too.
While on the subject, do you hold Primus as a greater power, a overgod, what? The Lady of Pain?
I personally treat Primus as a greater power.
I treat The Lady as The Lady, attempt to define at risk of flaying...
Originally posted by Tebryn14
Ok, so which is preferred? That Jazirian and the being now known as Asmodeus battled it out and their blood created the Couatl and Baatezu, respectively? Or that the Baernaloths created them from the flaw of chaos and law in the Yugoloths?
I agree with Shemeska, there's no reason why both of them can't be true.
GtH doesn't that all pit fiends (or even just the first pit fiends) are born from Asmodeus' blood, just that there are some pit fiends born of his his blood.
So there can be the baatezu (amon them pit fiends) who evolved from the spawn of the 'loth and the pit fiends who spill from Asmodeus' wound.
Originally posted by Tebryn14
That raises other questions as well. In FR, all faithless souls are placed in the the Wall of Kelemvor's city. But according the Guide to Hell, souls that do not accept any god are reborn on the ninth layer of Baator regarless of alignment. Any guesses. In addition, it states that to be reborn on the plane matching your alignment, belief is required. I thought that you were either put into the wall (Torilian Primer) or you went to the plane matching your disposition. Apparently not. Anyone know what is going on here?
Well, Toril is just one prime world out of millions. If Toril has a special rule for it's faithless set by Ao that wouldn't matter at all. Just a single pixel in the infinite picture.
Divine Rank: Ker-Flay
Originally posted by Drinnik Shoehorn
The Lady of Pain's divine rank is:
Divine Rank: Ker-Flay
Nice:D
Would it be plausible that they (the serpents [lower case]) created the Rule of Threes, and the Rule of Rings (or whatever it's called), but aren't the ones keeping it that way? Could this have happened after the removal of chaos and law from the 'loths?
Or do you recomment that I ignore any idea of Asmo and Jazirian being anything more than greater deities, with no real history? Or perhaps they were the original powers of LE and LG, and while battling to figure out which would be the "true" law, they were injured into their current forms, and since neither one won, LN won out by default.
Sorry, but I really want to find a concensus between the two myths that gives Asmodeus more credit than just being the greater power of devils. Not necesarily something holding the multiverse together, but a greater role than they might otherwise be attributed. I've already gotten rid of the Armageddon thing, and the unfaith thing. But I am stubborn, and my cyber arms are crossed
Well, I think thats it.
It is the beginning and the end. It is the Great Ring. It is the multiverse itself.
Few suspect its existence. The reptillian races are closest to the truth, and of those, the dragons know the most. They call the World Serpent Io-Chronepsis, the Creator and Destroyer, and say that it has nine aspects, good and evil, lawful and chaotic, and all the forces in between.
Other races usually know only of one or two of the World Serpent's aspects. The couatl hiss their prayers to Jazirian, the serpent of wisdom. The yuan-ti sacrifice sentient lives in the debased rites of Merrshaulk. Both are convinced they worship the World Serpent in its entirity, and the others see only a corrupted form.
The baatezu fear and revere their dark lord Asmodeus, and do not suspect his origins.
Asmodeus, too, is an aspect of the World Serpent. Long ago, before the various aspects had developed personalities of their own, Asmodeus was half of the Twin Serpents of Law.
The Twin Serpents were an aspect of the World Serpent that had been refracted completely into the side of Law. Perhaps the Ogdoad was their chaotic half, especially because the Ogdoad themselves did not distinguish between frogs, serpents, and baboons. The sage Zarasuthra records the names of the Twin Serpents as Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu, although they had many others, including Jazirian and Ahriman.
The Twin Serpents were not alone for long. From the bright aura of Jazirian were created the Amesha Spentas: Ameretat, Armaiti, Asha vahishta, Haurvatat, Khshathra vairya, Sraosa and Vohu Manah. From Ahriman's dark presence crept the Daevas: Aesma Daeva, Aka Manah, Indra, Nanghaithya, Saurva, Tawrich and Zarich. As time went by, the number of servitors grew larger. Together they ministered to all of the ordered and catalogued aspects of the multiverse, right and left.
It happened that Jazirian and Ahriman coiled around the Grey Fees, the place known as the Omphalos or the Spire, to discuss their plans for the multiverse.
They were met there by two beings with the seeming of a jackal and a bear.
The jackal asked, "Who are you?"
The Twin Serpents answered, "We are Synthesis, Continuity. We are the great cycle of light and darkness, good and evil."
The Jackal asked Ahriman, "Who are you?"
He/she answered, "I am darkness, evil. I am the order behind wounding."
The Jackal asked, "What is evil?"
Jazirian answered, "All that is not Me is evil."
The Jackal asked Jazirian, "Who are you?"
He/she answered, "I am goodness, light. I am the order behind healing."
The Bear spoke to the Twin Serpents.
The Bear asked them, "Who are you?"
They answered, "We are the Twin Serpents. We are the totality of Law."
The Bear asked Jazirian, "Who are you?"
Jazirian answered, "I am half of Law. I am Law climbing toward redemption."
The Bear asked Ahriman, "Who are you?"
Ahriman answered, "I am half of Law. I am Law descending toward corruption."
The Bear asked, "What is evil?"
Ahriman answered, "All that is not Jazirian is evil."
The Bear said, "On the edge of Law we have created a place dedicated to good."
The Jackal said, "On Law's other edge we have created a place dedicated to evil."
The Bear and Jackal withdrew.
Thus were the seeds of the conflict to come planted within them. Ultimately it would blossom into war, and sunder the planes themselves.
The World Serpent, however, still remains whole, despite the intrigues of its aspects. Perhaps it is actually because of these struggles and battles between the various visions of what the World Serpent could and should be that the Uroborus lives. Perhaps this is what defines its life.
The legend, recorded in the library of Demogorgon (himself perhaps an aspect of the Uroborus) is that Angra and Spenta Mainu ultimately turned their loving embrace of one another into a vicious attack, each attempting to rip the other apart, for they realized that what they each personified had become completely incompatible. Variations of the legend recorded elsewhere suggest the battle was actually sparked by a fight over one of their servitors, a being sometimes called Atar, Iblis, or Lucifer. But perhaps that is nonsense.
The fight went on for eons, or it lasted a single day and night. It still goes on.
Ahriman fell, bringing its servants with it in its wake. Jazirian soared toward the edge of Goodness, along with its loyal servitors.
With the exodus of the Twin Serpents, the role of Law's Champion was taken up by Primus, called Zurvan or Ammon by some, said to have been born from an lotus made of the same material as Mechanus' gears. Primus' roots spread throughout the realm of Law.
Prehistoric Baator was a darker, gloomier place than it is today. The inhabitants were old and often eyeless, some of them predating the formation of the planes, some of them the spawn of deities like Tiamat and Druaga, and some of them created by the Heart of Darkness.
The story of the Heart of Darkness, as the Book of Derelict Magics recounts it, is that the yugoloths divested themselves of the impurities of law and chaos, and these impurities manifested themselves as larvae. The larvae moved to, or were driven to, or somehow created the planes of Baator and the Abyss.
The Book of Derelict Magics claims the larvae evolved into the baatezu and tanar'ri we know today, or ancestors of them.
Because the Book of Derelict Magics was written by the yugoloths themselves, it must be considered suspect. At the least, it is incomplete.
Consider: although larvae evolve naturally into manes even in the present era, in Baator a larvae can sit for eons and never become a baatezu.
What larvae become in Baator is nupperibos. And although nupperibos are commonly thought to be a baatezu caste, this is far from the truth.
Could it be that the writers of the Book of Derelict Darkness excised mention of the Elder Baatorians for reasons of their own? Perhaps they keep the Elders hidden as an ace in the Pit, a guarantee against future needs.
It is likely that if the myth of the Heart of Darkness has any truth to it, that it was the Elder Baatorians who were directly created by the yugoloth pollution, and the baatezu came later.
The hordlings of Hades are also worth considering, for they too evolve from larvae. How do they fit into the myth? Could it be that when the elder 'loths were driving law and chaos from their spirits, they drove something else away as well? Perhaps it was some sense of balance, or desperation, or apathy that they felt was holding back the advancement of their race.
It is also said that there are races in the Abyss which predate the tanar'ri, strange things with names like qlippoth, v'ang, caligatio, and galchutt, and powerful entities with no names at all.
The baatezu would not arrive in the Nine Hells for a long time. It is believed by some that when Ahriman came tumbling out of Pure Law and landed in Baator's ninth layer, annihilating all life upon it and becoming paralyzed and trapped by the cruel mathematics of the plane which bound it in an equation from which it could not escape, the first of the baatezu pulled themselves from the essence of his blood, creating themselves from the logic of the fractured Serpent of Law, and creating the lower castes in their turn.
Perhaps this is even true. Or perhaps the baatezu were created more gradually and deliberately, with many failed experiments who lurk beneath the dungeons of Maladomini and the caves of Malbolge even now. Perhaps they were created by surviving servants of the Ahriman, or perhaps they, too, were tools of the yugoloths, created to drive the Elders into the darkness until they were needed again.
Perhaps everything in this treatise is a lie. The 'loths are masters of occult feints and the baatezu are masters of deception. Perhaps the truth of the origins of the baatezu and the Dark Lord of Nessus can never be known.
However, the rumors of something called the Bringing have become more and more insistent in recent times. It's said that the Resolver of Enchantments, Armaros, has been brought from his exile to Nessus to work on some fearsome project for the Dark Eight, one that it is said will shake the Blood War from his dizzying heights to its most basic foundations.
It is unquestionable that vast numbers of larvae are being imported to Malsheem. The enty for "larva" in one of the many appendices to the tome known as Monstrous Compendium says this:
The ceremonies to invoke the Bringing will be long and dangerous (although whatever could endanger a pit fiend can only be guessed at), and titanic energies will be released. To fuel the great spell, the life forces of a million larvae must be utterly destroyed. Although the rumor's truth is uncertain, the baatezu have been acquiring larvae from the night hags at an unusually rapid pace.
What most of the rumors do not say is that specific kinds of larvae are being sought. The night hags have very specific instuctions: seek out the souls of doubters, people who believe in nothing, those who live their lives in a perpetual cloud of gray uncertainty, people with no faith in the gods, in the alignments, or even themselves. These souls generally hang in a hazy oblivion for the greater part of eternity, having no convictions strong enough to bring them to a specific plane. If their souls are hag-taken before they die, however, they can be rendered into larvae.
A project at once so specific and of such magnitude cannot help but be noticed by some, but the Gray Sisters have thus far said little. Some notice the more frequent nightmare rides and whisper of the Bringing, but others speak of the upcoming Gloom Meet instead, or they merely shake their heads and avoid the worlds touched by the Ethereal Plane.
Almost none, not the hags, not the pit fiends, not the Dark Eight themselves, know the real purpose of the souls, or what the Bringing really is. It's not a Blood War weapon, as they are being told. At least, not of a conventional kind. The Bringing seeks to use doubt to dissolve the bonds of logic that anchor Asmodeus to the plane, to annul the mathematics that holds him in check. Only uncertainty can defeat the certainty of belief that the Outer Planes are made of, and through the hole so many doubting souls create the Serpent of Malign Law will slip, and at last the ancient disaster will be set right.
Ahriman will be free.
I hadn't much considered that the Baern or the 'loths might have created the Baatorians originally as well. Interesting complications that would have for the upper planes one day.
Perhaps another of the Baern was even more successful than Apomps and created a race in mockery of the 'loths, corrupted with law instead of chaos as the Gehreleths are. Perhaps Asmodeus is nothing less than the entrapped and titanic form of that Baern, once high or highest amongst his kin but exiled in much worse a way than Apomps would eventually be. The experiment with the Heart of Darkness that would see the creation of Baatezu and Tanar'ri might have simply been a last form of rewriting history to populate the planes with spawn to entrench themselves in Baator and the other hidden places of the lower planes to keep secret and hidden those blunders and sins of the Baern.
All of it.
Originally posted by Sammael_the_Chosen
Bah. Yugoloth propaganda.
All of it.
"Why ever would we put out false information?"
"Seriously, would this face ever lie to you?"
Originally posted by Tebryn14
...
I was thinking that perhaps Asmodeus's blood created the Ancient Baatorians (assuming they existed in 2e lore, don't know) and that the Baatezu created by the Baenaloths ousted them, and the Serpent just kinda went along for the ride.
...
This is the first reference I've ever seen to the Ancient Baatorians. Would someone give me a little more info about them? I'd appreciate it.
thanx,
Originally posted by Alicia Darkwing
This is the first reference I've ever seen to the Ancient Baatorians. Would someone give me a little more info about them? I'd appreciate it.
thanx,
They're the native race of Baator, the original inhabitants of the plane before the arrival of the Baatezu. Creatures called Nupperibo will spawn naturally from the essence of Baator, but are usually captured by the Baatezu and transmuted into lemures from which point they become proper Baatezu.
However... given time these Nupperibo will mature into so called Ancient Baatorians. First they get intelligent, then they sprout tentacles from their belly and chest, and finally they mutate into spined or tentacles giant slug-like beings that absorb light and cannot be harmed by anything short of a wish spell.
References:
Planescape books from 2e: 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends', 'Planes of Law', 'Hellbound: the Blood War', 'Tales from the Infinite Staircase'
3e books: veiled references to them in the Manual of the Planes hidden under the slopes and caverns of Malbolge (this was the location of a mature Ancient Baatorian in the Hellbound set in 2e).
The Manual of the Planes also makes reference to what may be Ancient Baatorians frozen solid deep under the ice of Cania, as well as bizarre and alien cities locked in the glaciers of that layer as well. And they all seem to be locked in combat with Archons and Aasimar (angels for the 3.5 set) who are also frozen into the ice.
Given time and an absence of Baatezu to stop them from spawning naturally, the Ancient Baatorians would eventually repopulate Baator.
Search around here and the MotP board, I've written a ton of stuff on this topic along with various other folks.
So the planes all form from the alignments. The ancient baatorian spawn on Baator. Then we have the creation of the tanar'ri and baatezu. Then we have these two greater deities, for some reason excluding Primus, pull the planes into their current configuration, set up the Rules of Three and RIngs, and battle while trying to determine the center of the Multiverse. Asmodeus falls to Hell, and lays there still, his blood forming the Pit Fiends and Cornugons loyal to him.
His existence has nothing to do with the universe staying where it is, only getting there in the first place.
Does this pull everything together nicely in a way that doesn't contradict any sources, except for parts of the GtH?
As for the whole Yugoloth story, it's too popular in my mind, and should be treated as 90% propaganda, with 10% truth. The same goes for the baatezu being spawned from Asmodeus, whether he is the First or not. We already know there was something before them, and I find it odd in the infinite multiverse that even the Baatorians were the first creatures. If you want to use the First Good and First Evil ideas, treat them like the Lady, and have Asmodeus taking advantage of whatever race inhabits Baator at the time.