Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Daemons, Demons, Devils, Oh My!

sciborg2's picture

While there is little more than teasers in the PCS about these races, I wanted to take note of how Paizo has handled the distinction - though I do feel they could make it more clear in the PCS. The break down, form the PCS and James Jacob's own words (in quotes):

Devils: "Corrupt faith and the mind."  Devils are interested in domination. They want a world of tyranny, and obtain this through corruption of faith and one's thoughts.

Demons: "Corrupt the physical world and the flesh." Demons I gather want to mutate the world into the "curdled" chaos of the Abyss.

Daemons: "Corrupt life." From the PCS I gather this means souls or life force. Daimons want death, to bring about the Apocalypse and end Creation. The Four Horsemen are the altraloths (in their original 1e conception) of the race, and sit on their thrones of War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. These guys are definitely the ones that made me sit up and take notice.

I suspect a lot of PS'ers have been using devils and demons in a similar vein, but what I like is that this angle allows for an easy transition of PCS into the fiends of Planescape described in Faces of Evil and Hellbound without people overly nitpicking on what is Lawful vs Chaotic and avoiding the 'do tanar'ri plan?' debate.

The essence of Law, Chaos, and Neutral Evil are there in Paizo's fiends, and I am especially curious about the Daemons as this is a different take on NE than the yugoloths though again reading through the little there was in the PCS (and Pathfinder #8: Crimson Throne) there is room for integration. After all, what the yugoloths ultimately desire after the triumph of evil has never been clear, and it does seem like their goal is more faith-based than devils and demons.

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