foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on May 25, 2016 19:01:59 GMT -5
I'd forgotten that last article (which I'm sure I read when I got BoD2 around 1988ish), but I like it. The idea that devils aren't generally active on the PMP, preferring to work through human intermediaries, while demons are common, but that the better organization of the LE's means they're just as much or more of a substantial threat whereas the CE's are more of an "acute" threat (each threat being generally smaller-scale and unique), is appealing, and helps make sense of the assumed shape of the campaign. I also like the notion that LE's are friendlier with LN's than they are with CE's (and vice versa with respect to CN's).
Also, I get the sense that he deliberately underplayed the strength and ambition of the NE's in this article, suggesting they're weaker and attempting basically to stay out of the way of the LE vs CE conflict when later material (the Gord series) suggests it's more a matter of biding their time and playing a long game awaiting the return of their boss Tharizdun, as a bit of misdirection. Or perhaps it's just a reflection that at the time the article was written in 1979 the NE/daemon faction hadn't yet been fully thought out and developed...
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Post by geneweigel on May 25, 2016 20:49:30 GMT -5
The confusion over the Horned Society in the Gord stories is geared right into this article (Sorry I mislabeled BEST OF DRAGON VOLUME II my graphics driver needed an update). He describes the heirarchs beings led by three main seats Tar-terus, Hades and Gehenna and ten on each side which are lower (which could represent other layers of those three however that wouldn't make sense) the ten represent the Hells because in the same novel Hell comes to the aid of the siege and Iuz call the hierarch's "devil's curs". Meaning the hierarch's lawful evil nature makes them put the neutral evil in front while they control the entire country.
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Post by geneweigel on May 25, 2016 21:11:05 GMT -5
In 2002, in an e-mail about other crap, I said to Gary about someday getting to the root of the confusion over the Horned Society and this was his response:
and cited all references to NE to show how I became confused because I didn't want to seem glib (like the usual canon GHers) with most of the points from the book ARTIFACT OF EVIL (1986) and he replied with:
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Post by geneweigel on May 26, 2016 8:32:00 GMT -5
Here is the chaos element to the Horned society and in a tip of the hat to the original layout of alignment for orcs as chaotic:
So he's invading with CE monsters and looking to raise Chaotic Evil orcs and humans.
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