- Location
- E-Girl Deseret
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Perhaps convincing them that instead of everything being bad, one particular guy/faction is the source of all that's wrong?
A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
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- Tags
- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Brimoraks are a very low order of Demon. At CR 5, they're not even a blip on a Demon Lord's radar, especially considering that the Abyss is infinite in size, with effectively infinite numbers of Demons. The lower they are in the Demonic hierarchy, the more of them there are and the less attention they attract. My Summoning plan will only get about 3,000 of them per month. If there was anyone in the Abyss keeping track of the Demon population, that number wouldn't even qualify as a rounding error.
I don't think we could ever Summon enough of them to attract the attention of a Demon Lord, especially because we're going to be doing random Summoning which will be plucking them from among the infinite layers of the Abyss.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Counterpoint, the propagation of the conjuring is centered on a singular target location. That lights up the local radar, and could attract local interlopers, or hell, even arouse the interest of the demons in the area, of which I believe there are quite a few.
Edit: Though to be fair, we are using Demiplanes.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
That is a possibility, but we've taken quite a lot of precautions to mitigate it. The Forbiddance warding extends well beyond the actual Snare Chamber, then the exterior of the Snare Chamber is protected by what is effectively a Wall of Force bubble created by multiple Greater Signs of Sealing, while the interior features a layer of lead sandwiched between fused basalt layers. The Summoning Circle itself is also protected by a Hallow effect with a Dimensional Anchor spell linked to it. All together, these security features should do a lot to smooth out or dampen any telltale residual energies from the Summonings, though that's mostly conjecture on my part.
When it comes to detectable magic related to Conjuration, very little if anything should be able to emanate from the Snare Chamber.
That said, we don't have to do this every month, or constantly. After we secure our load of sacrificial HD this month, we can cut back significantly or even take a month off without using the Snare at all to allow things to settle down.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
What do ya'll think about putting a Permanent Lost Locale spell on the island which houses the Snare using diamond dust? Lost Locale is the big daddy version of Lost Passage spell, and Viserys could cast it hard enough to affect the entire island. It wouldn't stop everything from finding the island, of course, but anything without an extremely high Will save or a Mind Blank would be at a severe disadvantage attempting to locate it, and even if they did the penalties they would suffer on the island are pretty rough.
Shifting outsiders like that is always dicey since it effectively involves changing their fundamental makeup more than changing their minds, It looks like most fallen outsiders do so because they have some inherit conflict in their nature that has to be resolved one way or the other that forces a state change. The Erinyes are the perfect example of this, having fallen as a group because one half of their nature fell in direct conflict with the other.
There's also the group like Yreal, who fall because they get pushed into a position where they can't resolve reality with their belief system no matter how hard they try. The line for that gets fuzzy based on how flexible they can be and how good they are a self deception, which we can see in the slaver angels that haven't fallen.
I don't think any of them are really capable of wanting to change any more than water is capable of wanting to boil. The freedom to think that way only comes into play when they reach a personal paradox that they need to straighten out. The closest we see any non mortal come to changing without a crisis is Glya, and she did it because it got her something she wanted. She hit a condition where her flavor of CE whimsical selfishness led her into it.
I don't think we can talk someone into changing like that reliably, because we'd need to draw a phase diagram of their personal ethical system and force to a boundary before they have the wiggle room to want to change in the first place. We can probably walk them over the edge, but getting them there doesn't seem like the kind of thing that can be done over a proverbial cup of tea for most people.
For something as completely self centered as a demon or daemon, even getting them to acknowledge that evidence matters would be a significant task.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Worth keeping in mind, but we have offered Demons a new work arrangement before, though mostly through using one of our pet deities, and the alternative for most of them was a pretty loose guarantee they'd eventually fuck up with their impulse control and force us to put them down, so the choice immediately goes between changing your fundamental nature under effective duress, or being offered a one way trip back to the Abyss... who can blame them? Not really much of a choice.
Of the "demons" who've walked over truthfully, fully and of their own will, Azema had fifty-person demon blood which is apparently worse than advanced Tiefling, it's enough impulse control not to immediately fuck up irrevocably within a handful of years, but always existing in a state of existential crisis because the way you want to live goes against your fundamental nature.
Basically nothing about our interactions with full-on demons can involve a relationship that doesn't feature a significant power imbalance. Just the way the dice roll for Chaotic Evil Outsiders, since they fall on a diametrically opposite side of the spectrum from which we could conceivably prop up a stable society, it becomes less a case of a small compromise in one's ideals in order to advance other interests (a fair bargain for a devil) and instead becomes a case where the best deals we make result in a bit of Stockholm syndrome, or outright resentment.
I mean sure, eventually they might come to appreciate that, but I am... honestly troubled with the idea of doing that on a massive scale.
I would feel better if we did it rarely, though. I guess for me the difference is in doing it often enough that we have constant streams of new entrants to "Abyssal Anonymous", and doing it so infrequently that it's no more questionable than our habitual orphanindoctrination adopting. No cause for institutional resentment and few reasons to complain.
Of the "demons" who've walked over truthfully, fully and of their own will, Azema had fifty-person demon blood which is apparently worse than advanced Tiefling, it's enough impulse control not to immediately fuck up irrevocably within a handful of years, but always existing in a state of existential crisis because the way you want to live goes against your fundamental nature.
Basically nothing about our interactions with full-on demons can involve a relationship that doesn't feature a significant power imbalance. Just the way the dice roll for Chaotic Evil Outsiders, since they fall on a diametrically opposite side of the spectrum from which we could conceivably prop up a stable society, it becomes less a case of a small compromise in one's ideals in order to advance other interests (a fair bargain for a devil) and instead becomes a case where the best deals we make result in a bit of Stockholm syndrome, or outright resentment.
I mean sure, eventually they might come to appreciate that, but I am... honestly troubled with the idea of doing that on a massive scale.
I would feel better if we did it rarely, though. I guess for me the difference is in doing it often enough that we have constant streams of new entrants to "Abyssal Anonymous", and doing it so infrequently that it's no more questionable than our habitual orphan
I don't think they can even really do this by themselves. Pretty much every case we've seen so far has involved the outsider's nature being turned against itself in a way that creates a contradiction that they must resolve.
The tricky bit is that it has more to do with the subject experience of the person in question than objective reality. That's why Yrael's refusal to deceive himself in the face of personal experience with the truth led to his fall, but some angels can sell their peers to devils and keep their grace.
I think that's why LG has an easier time falling than most other alignments do changing in any way. It has the most external set of conditions and framework. Pitting duty against compassion is one thing, but how do you create a point of contradiction in the selfishness of a demon in a way that it both cares about and can't deny?
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Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
When the desires often do not lead to fulfillment, where passion does not engage the senses, and when destruction often does not find a target except the self, maybe?
I think "of the self" centers hard there, there's a fundamental fulcrum for each end of the axiomatic moral spectrum. For demons, when their very actions act as a denial of the self, that is when one can take the necessary step to make a conscious decision and rise above its own nature.
Hence, for a demon, you often have to place it in a position which forces it to confront its own motives, and remove all external influences which it usually would direct those impulses toward.
I foresee two outcomes: it destroys itself, or it experiences a soft shift. The chink in the armor of solipsism it surrounds itself with, one which those external forces can then interact with and take advantage of.
Why do we not see this more often? Well, first of all, there's literally infinite demons, so no amount of doing this would seem reasonable to anyone but Archons, who see such activities which innately require empathetic nature but also reliance on systematic self-reflection to be possible as desirable.
There are no systems of Archons which are comparable with other Powers and Principalities anymore, so of course this is not heavily in evidence in-setting. Because no one is doing it anymore. Even Yrael took in some of the Harpies he captured and tried to reform them. Technically I'm not sure if they're more abyssal influenced and mortal, like Drow, and thus malleable in nature, or more like Azema, but well... We don't actually know how those efforts went. Something for @DragonParadox to comment on, perhaps.
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- Location
- Germany
We have recruited a few Yaenith Demons from Heaven's Shore.
They were part of a bandit-group together with fallen Hound Archons and a Neutral-Fallen Spy Archon keeping some semblance of order between them.
They agreed to get the Yss-treatment, prefering it to either slavery in Heaven or a return to the Abyss.
Of course we don't really know their full circumstances, how such an unusual group came together, how the bonds between them were forged and why the Yaenit ultimatly decided to go against their previous nature.
- Location
- Argentina
Asmodeus: "Congratulations, you activated my trap card: Mass Blood Sacrifice!The option to drop a few lumps of rock and/or Hardened multi-ton Iron ingots from low orbit directly onto the Slavers' Bay is still an option.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
- Location
- Germany
I think it was mentioned when the "Wildfire caches burn down KL" came up that this kind of aimless mass-destruction would be best suited for making a portal to the Abyss, or something similarly demon-related.
Low odds on it working out for Baator.
Low odds on it working out for Baator.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
Okay then, Pathfidner specifically done, but I feel liek there's no urgency to go to the lists for 3.5 anymore either.
Here ya go @Azel. All have same 6 HD as Brimoraks, so all are equally efficient to summon.
Apocalypse Locusts. No redeeming qualities, no dedicated Arch-whatever's looking over them as a part of their armies, seem to be naturally occurring (so essentially innumerable across the planes)
2 Fort less of a Save than Brimoraks, but tbh it's not like Fort save less than 14 would even matter with the buffs and Permanencies planned by @Goldfish.
They are Mythic though, so it can go all very wonky very quickly. Pathfinder is kinda light-handed with giving those ranks out compared to DP, however, it can be argued they shouldn't really have those for our setting.
Phantom Stalkers. Mostly just elemental energy with animal-level intelligence. No overseeing Arch-entities of any sort. Should be essentially limitless in number considering the plane of Fire is 'infinite' in scope.
Sans the 1/day polymorph (can it affect itself with it if it is already Petrified?) is nothing special. Death-throes shouldn't trigger with Petrification as our chosen method of handling it?
Deinochoses. Okay, so, these guys do have Arch-whatever's looking over them... But they are essentially beasts in the infinite place the Abyss is. And Arch-Qippoths are noted to be more reclusive than Demon-lords.
In general, Qlippoths are an immediate enemy to us as much as Demons or Daemons are, so no fucks given regarding the allegiance, the only effective difference from summoning these to summoning Brimoraks is, well, Demons are far more numerous and out-going even in the objective infinity the Abyss is.
I've left out a few options ofc.
Because Neutral extraplanar animals sacrificed in thousands is just animal cruelty without making the universe a "better" place even in principle;
LE entities which "wish for nothing more than to return to their home plane" is even more so;
Arguably asshole entities with no defined Home Plane can't be assumed to have no one behind them;
And we won't touch Neutral or Good entities with a 10-foot pole IC. I don't care, but Viserys and Companions, well...
Fun stuff: We technically could summon a bunch of Balor Lords (CR25) if we wanted to. Just a 200 IM caller's feather needed to bring a world-ending threat into reality.
Pathfinder is "fun" like that.
Here ya go @Azel. All have same 6 HD as Brimoraks, so all are equally efficient to summon.
Apocalypse Locusts. No redeeming qualities, no dedicated Arch-whatever's looking over them as a part of their armies, seem to be naturally occurring (so essentially innumerable across the planes)
2 Fort less of a Save than Brimoraks, but tbh it's not like Fort save less than 14 would even matter with the buffs and Permanencies planned by @Goldfish.
They are Mythic though, so it can go all very wonky very quickly. Pathfinder is kinda light-handed with giving those ranks out compared to DP, however, it can be argued they shouldn't really have those for our setting.
Phantom Stalkers. Mostly just elemental energy with animal-level intelligence. No overseeing Arch-entities of any sort. Should be essentially limitless in number considering the plane of Fire is 'infinite' in scope.
Sans the 1/day polymorph (can it affect itself with it if it is already Petrified?) is nothing special. Death-throes shouldn't trigger with Petrification as our chosen method of handling it?
Deinochoses. Okay, so, these guys do have Arch-whatever's looking over them... But they are essentially beasts in the infinite place the Abyss is. And Arch-Qippoths are noted to be more reclusive than Demon-lords.
In general, Qlippoths are an immediate enemy to us as much as Demons or Daemons are, so no fucks given regarding the allegiance, the only effective difference from summoning these to summoning Brimoraks is, well, Demons are far more numerous and out-going even in the objective infinity the Abyss is.
I've left out a few options ofc.
Because Neutral extraplanar animals sacrificed in thousands is just animal cruelty without making the universe a "better" place even in principle;
LE entities which "wish for nothing more than to return to their home plane" is even more so;
Arguably asshole entities with no defined Home Plane can't be assumed to have no one behind them;
And we won't touch Neutral or Good entities with a 10-foot pole IC. I don't care, but Viserys and Companions, well...
Fun stuff: We technically could summon a bunch of Balor Lords (CR25) if we wanted to. Just a 200 IM caller's feather needed to bring a world-ending threat into reality.
Pathfinder is "fun" like that.
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- Location
- Germany
I would not rule out that it can somehow explode itself without actually dying, like demons can let themselves die to avoid capture (stupid Shadow-thing).
Especially as these are noted to be often employed by the local Big Bads.
Unique Outsiders cannot be summoned against their will and require a name.Fun stuff: We technically could summon a bunch of Balor Lords (CR25) if we wanted to. Just a 200 IM caller's feather needed to bring a world-ending threat into reality.
- Location
- Germany
Those look like the footsoldiers of a christian-style apocalypse. Probably not available.
And Pathfinder is indeed much quicker to hand out Mythic ranks, since the system is designed to gain the first ones at low levels already. Here though, we only started using the system very late and mostly use it to beef up high-CR stuff. Mythic ranks are not just additive, but multiplicative. Giving a Level 5 Wizard a Mythic Rank is much, much less of a power boost then giving a Level 20 Wizard one.
Those look good, but I'm not sure if they can be reliably petrified, due to being elementals.
I'd rather not poke the Qlippoths.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
Ah, fair, missed the fact it's a "unique" thing and not an "eh, just slap some power on it and call it a new creature" by the writers.
Fair enough.
@DragonParadox?
@Azel, the alternative to it all, there's a 3 HD Div variety, which will make summoning only a little wonkier for some results... Afaik?
And Divs are unequivocal assholes.
Welp, those all aside my suggestion-well is dry. At least I tried?
- Location
- Germany
Sadly those won't work. They can just float, so the Stone Pudding can't petrify them.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
Make a cage over the summoning circle, with just enough space above the pudding to summon in and do melee attacks?
It (the cage) is kinda an assumed feature anyway. Our Snare has one.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Phantom Stalkers would actually be ideal for this. Nice find, dude.Okay then, Pathfidner specifically done, but I feel liek there's no urgency to go to the lists for 3.5 anymore either.
Here ya go @Azel. All have same 6 HD as Brimoraks, so all are equally efficient to summon.
Apocalypse Locusts. No redeeming qualities, no dedicated Arch-whatever's looking over them as a part of their armies, seem to be naturally occurring (so essentially innumerable across the planes)
2 Fort less of a Save than Brimoraks, but tbh it's not like Fort save less than 14 would even matter with the buffs and Permanencies planned by @Goldfish.
They are Mythic though, so it can go all very wonky very quickly. Pathfinder is kinda light-handed with giving those ranks out compared to DP, however, it can be argued they shouldn't really have those for our setting.
Phantom Stalkers. Mostly just elemental energy with animal-level intelligence. No overseeing Arch-entities of any sort. Should be essentially limitless in number considering the plane of Fire is 'infinite' in scope.
Sans the 1/day polymorph (can it affect itself with it if it is already Petrified?) is nothing special. Death-throes shouldn't trigger with Petrification as our chosen method of handling it?
Deinochoses. Okay, so, these guys do have Arch-whatever's looking over them... But they are essentially beasts in the infinite place the Abyss is. And Arch-Qippoths are noted to be more reclusive than Demon-lords.
In general, Qlippoths are an immediate enemy to us as much as Demons or Daemons are, so no fucks given regarding the allegiance, the only effective difference from summoning these to summoning Brimoraks is, well, Demons are far more numerous and out-going even in the objective infinity the Abyss is.
I've left out a few options ofc.
Because Neutral extraplanar animals sacrificed in thousands is just animal cruelty without making the universe a "better" place even in principle;
LE entities which "wish for nothing more than to return to their home plane" is even more so;
Arguably asshole entities with no defined Home Plane can't be assumed to have no one behind them;
And we won't touch Neutral or Good entities with a 10-foot pole IC. I don't care, but Viserys and Companions, well...
Fun stuff: We technically could summon a bunch of Balor Lords (CR25) if we wanted to. Just a 200 IM caller's feather needed to bring a world-ending threat into reality.
Pathfinder is "fun" like that.
They're Elemental Outsiders, but not the immaterial/incorporeal energy kind of elementals. They have the standard elemental traits, which do not preclude being Petrified.
With a Will save bonus of +2, 1 less than the Brimoraks, we would be even more successful Summoning them. On average, rather than Summoning 100 Brimoraks per day, we could instead get 108 Phantom Stalkers. That's an extra 240 per month, or 1,440 HD, bringing the total up to 19,440.
@Artemis1992, if they could willingly detonate themselves, it would be mentioned on their bestiary page.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Yep.
I don't think we'll need to worry about it, though, because the Phantom Stalkers should be perfect for our needs.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
Ah, so you were talking specifically the "industrialized" approach, then.
@Azel, @Goldfish, how many days of dedicated "boomrush-summoning" we want Viserys/Lya dynamic duo and the "Rider-killer"-team? I feel like having ~20k HD is enough for the ritual, but also... well, overpaying on this will only let R'hlor slap Ymeri harder, and make all "future Pantheon"-guys better acquainted working together.
And what variant of Outsiders we want to target?
Phantom Stalkers as well, or some Daemons in hopes of snagging a Rider? Or
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
I was talking with the "built on a demiplane connected to Etherial Plane"-Snare in mind, not the "mass-summoning" modification we'd slap on our existing "SD's Pimpin' Snare". |
Why I was talking that way?
I dunno, I kinda forgot about auto-summoning process you came up with for a few hours :/
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
If we want to prompt the appearance of a Horseman, we won't be Summoning chump Daemons. That will be a dedicated operation where we start pulling in CR 16 to 20 Daemons which will actually be missed, and we wouldn't be doing this without Viserys and multiple Companions present. I'm pretty confident that I can rig up something that would kill most of the Horseman without direct user input, but it would take special preparations which we wouldn't want active permanently due to the instant lethality to anything we might wish to save for sacrificial purposes. Having some high level folks available to provide Counterspelling and Dispelling will make that significantly more effective, too.
That's an operation for another time, though, when we don't have quite so many pressing issues.