I think the chain devils are their basic torturers, excurciarchs are for especially resilient souls, and then the pain devils are like the overseers and foremen who maybe come in as specialists, with that ranking being a kind of lateral promotion
The nupperebo lore is facinating. Theres even a case of a cult imprisoning one to see what it might mature into, and another ancient bateezuan who could eat light and visibility. I think all of the origins might be true
These videos are fucking awesome man TIER 1 content, thanks a lot! The hells are one of my favourite topics, finding your channel was like I found videos that were catered directly to me, really fantastic.
FYI: Petitioners are just dead people's souls. The souls of people who did not worship a deity would be sent to the Outer Plane that matched their alignment, where they would work to merge with the plane. When someone worshipped a god in life, then they would instead be sent to serve their deity in its divine realm, embedded within a section of one of the planes (almost always the Outer Plane matching their deity's alignment, but there were a few divine realms located in the Inner Planes or elsewhere). Sometimes deities would send their own petitioners out of their personal realms on quests or errands, but a petitioner faced potential annihilation when they fell outside of the god's realm or the Outer Plane in which they resided. It was also possible for a petitioner to switch allegiance from one plane or god to another. In the Nine Hells, the standard planar petitioner was a lemure, but there would also be the humanoid petitioner servants of deities like Set or Tiamat whose divine realms existed within the Nine Hells. Many petitioners from other planes were also tricked into traveling to the Nine Hells, where they could not escape. This is why there is a veritable smorgasbord of petitioner types in the Nine Hells, as the devils tried to gather more petitioners by hook or by crook to fuel the Blood War. The Wall of the Faithless was only ever a fate for the souls of mortals over which the Faerunian Pantheon presided, but not those souls from other Prime Material worlds, nor even those souls from other parts of Toril where the Faerunian Pantheon did not hold sway. I hope this clears up some of the confusion about petitioners.
Thank you, this is helpful! The afterlife in D&D is very confusing to me and a lot of it boils down to “we don’t know”, the designers seem to keep it intentionally mysterious. I know devils sometimes enslave petitioners from other places and in some editions petitioners sent to hell don’t turn into Lemures immediately, but are still vaguely humanoid and are then tortured and transformed into Lemures that way. There’s a lot going on down there lol.
@@Genghis_Sean It's worth looking into the video game _Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer,_ as it is a canon 3.5E adventure. The game contains an epic-level campaign using Myrkul's creation of the Wall of the Faithless and Kelemvor's judgement of souls in the afterlife as part of the central conflict of its story. There's also a side quest involving how infernal pacts work. Of course, things work slightly differently outside of the Forgotten Realms, so it's better to look at the 2E Planescape setting materials for that.
An arch devil, or greater devil appearing in 1e is equivalent to near instant TPK. They have psionic disciplines, escape death, and require a very specific way to be defeated. A number of creatures in the 1e Monster Manuel were intended for end of campaign encounters. This means several players, hirelings, followers, henchmen, and summons will be involved. Its going to be brutal giving it a try after a long time spent planning. The players going to win? Its very doubtful, however if the players give it their all. They may be able to put up a suitable challenge.
Personally prefer succubi and incubi as Chaotiv Evil non demonic fiends. They might naturally work together with some demon prince's, but generally just do they're own thing enslaved to their whims. They lack a lot of the violent urges and unbridled hatred that demons by default have.
Petitioners are loaned to devils by God's in transactions between powers and devils. Think this was 1st Ed or planescape canon. Mentioned once or twice in a random description here and there
I don't like to think of Erinyes as baatezu. Their lore speaks to them being the fallen angels that decended with asmodeus. Which makes them more akin to ache fiends than lower devils. It is said that as the host battled the demons spilling forth from abyss they were twisted by the fight against chaos and took on aspects most fearful to reflect their new willingness to take on ever darker means to attain their goals of law. You don't see much of that in the erinyes' they kinda just look like angels. Maybe there was a second schism. 🤔 some of the celestial who had fallen disagreed with how asmo was conducting affairs in nessus and were purified by him.
25:40 They also possessed ofthe idea that all insidious and seductive evil had to be for Devils, and Chaotic Evil was going to just be stupid/destructive evil, (I think they just renamed Neutral and Lawful evil to just "Evil" on top of that, or floated that idea in early design documents)
That’s an interesting take. I always thought the Wall of Faithless was a weird addition to the lore, especially since only Faerunian humans (who aren’t from Mulhorand or Unther) go to Kelemvor, everyone else has their own gods of death that don’t have an equivalent to the Wall of Faithless. So why did Kelemvor decide he needs one when no one else does?
Genghis - Excellent and concise treatment. Can you provide any greater input on the Rakshasa? In 1e they were evil spirits that tempted men to their ruin but weren’t necessarily infernal nor abyssal (terms that weren’t widely used for 1/2e). Appreciate your work.
The torturing of the souls is punishment for their sins in life, as agreed upon in the pact primeval. Lawful does not mean "good". Lawful means they follow a set of rules, and are orderly, but will use loop holes to play the system.
the wall for the faithless is, as i understand it for ppl who know the gods are real and in fact gods but dont care about them. the faithless asmodeus recives are thos who flat out refuse that the gods are gods and/or are even real, thats why they are so rare and why asmodeus hasnt healed himself allready coz there are only a handful of them in every millenium
Mindflayers have a god and there are mindflayer petitioners in his divine realm, so they do have souls. Not sure why BG3 says they don’t but that game takes some liberties with the lore, and Withers could just be lying.
@IDontKnowYouWhoAreYou You don't need to be from the Forgotten Realms to have a soul, as far as I'm aware all living things have souls. In Player's Guide to Faerun it describes Ilsensine's divine realm as having mindflayer petitioners, and petitioners is just another word for soul.
Of the many lame ass things to come out of AD&D 2e, the concept of the Blood War is near the lamest, right behind the words baatezu & tanari'ri. And the whole Planescape line is pure hot garbage.
35:36 I thought Tiamat was archdevil of the first layer of Hell in first edition.
She was, I just messed up.
@@Genghis_Sean That is... very mature of you to admit good sir. Have a nice day. God bless.
Jeez….imagine dying and going to hell just to get stuck in another cycle of corporate style promotion, complete with HR and quarterly evaluations 😂😂😂😂
I'll bet they have a lot of meetings and team building exercises as well.
That sounds just like Hell to me
There was a show on Adults swim called "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell" it's exactly like that.
Office Space: In Hell
Thank you for your Clear and Linear discussion. Most chan seem to have their notes scrambled by a goblin, right out the gate your content gets 5 stars
Happy the algorith helped me find this channel.
I think the chain devils are their basic torturers, excurciarchs are for especially resilient souls, and then the pain devils are like the overseers and foremen who maybe come in as specialists, with that ranking being a kind of lateral promotion
Really love you indepth complete 1-5th Ed lore videos.
Super useful ❤
The nupperebo lore is facinating. Theres even a case of a cult imprisoning one to see what it might mature into, and another ancient bateezuan who could eat light and visibility. I think all of the origins might be true
I would literally give my soul to find out what happens when you let a nupperebo mature completely, I NEED that lore lol
Cant wait to see hiw the channel grows .i love the clear strait foward approach with useful description
These videos are fucking awesome man TIER 1 content, thanks a lot! The hells are one of my favourite topics, finding your channel was like I found videos that were catered directly to me, really fantastic.
Thanks for the straight foreword video!
FYI: Petitioners are just dead people's souls.
The souls of people who did not worship a deity would be sent to the Outer Plane that matched their alignment, where they would work to merge with the plane. When someone worshipped a god in life, then they would instead be sent to serve their deity in its divine realm, embedded within a section of one of the planes (almost always the Outer Plane matching their deity's alignment, but there were a few divine realms located in the Inner Planes or elsewhere). Sometimes deities would send their own petitioners out of their personal realms on quests or errands, but a petitioner faced potential annihilation when they fell outside of the god's realm or the Outer Plane in which they resided. It was also possible for a petitioner to switch allegiance from one plane or god to another.
In the Nine Hells, the standard planar petitioner was a lemure, but there would also be the humanoid petitioner servants of deities like Set or Tiamat whose divine realms existed within the Nine Hells. Many petitioners from other planes were also tricked into traveling to the Nine Hells, where they could not escape. This is why there is a veritable smorgasbord of petitioner types in the Nine Hells, as the devils tried to gather more petitioners by hook or by crook to fuel the Blood War.
The Wall of the Faithless was only ever a fate for the souls of mortals over which the Faerunian Pantheon presided, but not those souls from other Prime Material worlds, nor even those souls from other parts of Toril where the Faerunian Pantheon did not hold sway.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion about petitioners.
Thank you, this is helpful! The afterlife in D&D is very confusing to me and a lot of it boils down to “we don’t know”, the designers seem to keep it intentionally mysterious. I know devils sometimes enslave petitioners from other places and in some editions petitioners sent to hell don’t turn into Lemures immediately, but are still vaguely humanoid and are then tortured and transformed into Lemures that way. There’s a lot going on down there lol.
@@Genghis_Sean It's worth looking into the video game _Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer,_ as it is a canon 3.5E adventure. The game contains an epic-level campaign using Myrkul's creation of the Wall of the Faithless and Kelemvor's judgement of souls in the afterlife as part of the central conflict of its story. There's also a side quest involving how infernal pacts work.
Of course, things work slightly differently outside of the Forgotten Realms, so it's better to look at the 2E Planescape setting materials for that.
An arch devil, or greater devil appearing in 1e is equivalent to near instant TPK. They have psionic disciplines, escape death, and require a very specific way to be defeated.
A number of creatures in the 1e Monster Manuel were intended for end of campaign encounters. This means several players, hirelings, followers, henchmen, and summons will be involved. Its going to be brutal giving it a try after a long time spent planning. The players going to win? Its very doubtful, however if the players give it their all. They may be able to put up a suitable challenge.
Personally prefer succubi and incubi as Chaotiv Evil non demonic fiends. They might naturally work together with some demon prince's, but generally just do they're own thing enslaved to their whims. They lack a lot of the violent urges and unbridled hatred that demons by default have.
Petitioners are loaned to devils by God's in transactions between powers and devils.
Think this was 1st Ed or planescape canon.
Mentioned once or twice in a random description here and there
nice one!
27:22 In 3.5 they are Devils, but interestingly LACK the Baatezu subtype.
I don't like to think of Erinyes as baatezu. Their lore speaks to them being the fallen angels that decended with asmodeus. Which makes them more akin to ache fiends than lower devils. It is said that as the host battled the demons spilling forth from abyss they were twisted by the fight against chaos and took on aspects most fearful to reflect their new willingness to take on ever darker means to attain their goals of law. You don't see much of that in the erinyes' they kinda just look like angels. Maybe there was a second schism. 🤔 some of the celestial who had fallen disagreed with how asmo was conducting affairs in nessus and were purified by him.
25:40 They also possessed ofthe idea that all insidious and seductive evil had to be for Devils, and Chaotic Evil was going to just be stupid/destructive evil, (I think they just renamed Neutral and Lawful evil to just "Evil" on top of that, or floated that idea in early design documents)
3:07 Well the Wall of the Faithless could be seen as Realmspace having one last line of protection to save even the faithless from Asmodeus.
That’s an interesting take. I always thought the Wall of Faithless was a weird addition to the lore, especially since only Faerunian humans (who aren’t from Mulhorand or Unther) go to Kelemvor, everyone else has their own gods of death that don’t have an equivalent to the Wall of Faithless. So why did Kelemvor decide he needs one when no one else does?
@@Genghis_Sean Cause Atheism is cringe I guess.
@@DIEGhostfish 🤷♂️
In 3.5 the Cornugon seemed to be higher than the Ice devils
And there it is. I like Horned devils more than Ice devils so I like 3.5 best.
nice
Genghis - Excellent and concise treatment. Can you provide any greater input on the Rakshasa? In 1e they were evil spirits that tempted men to their ruin but weren’t necessarily infernal nor abyssal (terms that weren’t widely used for 1/2e). Appreciate your work.
The torturing of the souls is punishment for their sins in life, as agreed upon in the pact primeval. Lawful does not mean "good". Lawful means they follow a set of rules, and are orderly, but will use loop holes to play the system.
first
the wall for the faithless is, as i understand it for ppl who know the gods are real and in fact gods but dont care about them. the faithless asmodeus recives are thos who flat out refuse that the gods are gods and/or are even real, thats why they are so rare and why asmodeus hasnt healed himself allready coz there are only a handful of them in every millenium
Brabo!
can you talk about if mind flayers have souls please?
Mindflayers have a god and there are mindflayer petitioners in his divine realm, so they do have souls. Not sure why BG3 says they don’t but that game takes some liberties with the lore, and Withers could just be lying.
@@Genghis_Sean are you sure they do? how can they have souls? they arent even from the forgotten realms but outside of the astral plane right?
@IDontKnowYouWhoAreYou You don't need to be from the Forgotten Realms to have a soul, as far as I'm aware all living things have souls. In Player's Guide to Faerun it describes Ilsensine's divine realm as having mindflayer petitioners, and petitioners is just another word for soul.
Of the many lame ass things to come out of AD&D 2e, the concept of the Blood War is near the lamest, right behind the words baatezu & tanari'ri. And the whole Planescape line is pure hot garbage.