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Shifting the course of the blood war

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Thu, 2005-02-17 12:17
#1
Companero
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Shifting the course of the blood war

Hi...

I've been playing a long running solo campaign in Planescape for quite awhile, without access to most of the sourcebooks - just 3e Manual of the Planes and this site (along with my imagination, of course) basically... Recently, as the PC has grown in power i've been getting him involved in more planar politics, until you get this - a blatant attempt to shock him out of complacency by destroying some familiar things and rearranging others:

Quote:
In a catacylsmic battle under the Wasting Tower, the main Baatezu field army was utterly defeated by a force of Tanarri, who supported by Chaotic allies were able to decimate it. While disasters like this have happened before, the Tanarri were able to exploit their victory with suprising (or rather suspicious) speed and launch a direct attack on the fortress of Blood Pass - a mass military portal in the foothills between Hades and Gehenna, linking directly to Avernus. Again, this has happened before. This time, however, the intervention of a Yugolith host led to a second devastating Tanarri victory. Each victory convinces more and more demons to swarm out of the abyss in the wake of the main army, allowing the horde to maintain its momentum in the wake of fierce resistance. At the same time, the Lords of the Nine are pulling their forces back to the Avernus front. At present, the main Abyssal horde is pinned down around the Avernus side of the Blood Pass portal, but smaller Tanarri warbands are advancing across Gehenna, aiming to attack the plane from a different angle.

The power shift has begun to affect the planes in unprecedented ways. Carceri has been completely overrun by Demonic troops, and even if the main horde was to be defeated and forced from Avernus tommorow, the Tanarri will continue to hold this plane for quite sometime to come. At the present time the upper levels of the Grey Wastes have also been overwhelmed by the bulk of the horde, altough this territory would probably be impossible to hold in the event of a defeat, especially given the chaotic command structure that (often fails to) hold the demons together.

In addition, reports suggest that a force of mortal mercaneries may have seized the town of Ribcage in the outlands in preparation for the arrival of a much larger demonic force seeking to use the portal.

So basically, a major shift (for now, at least) in the Blood War, and thus the planes... I'm haven't 100% decided on which way to go with this - the option I think I will take will see a devilish counterattack supported by some not-entirely welcome allies defeat the horde and throwing them back to the Grey Wastes (even so, the effects on Carceri might turn out to permanent...). I am still however toying with the idea that instead several members of the Council of Nine, believing defeat is immement, rebel against Asmodeus, either in order to save their own supernatural skins or because they believe they would do a better job of fighting the horde themselves... This would lead to Chaotic forces in total control of Avernus and Dis and with footholds in each of the other hells, while devilish forces fight for the corpse...of course, eventually the Tanarri would have to win, and I think that change might be too big, even for this...

But anyway, i've got some questions I was hoping you could help me answer, if thats okay.

Okay - belief shapes the planes, right?. I assume then that if Chaotic forces are currently holding much more territory than normal, then those territories are becoming more 'chaotic'. Do you think that the nature of the planes themselves would change to fit the nature of their new masters, or would certain levels simply shift sideways into planes which better fit their new alignment? And would a major chaotic shift begin to affect all the Planes in some way, and if so, in what ways?

Secondly, and more directly important to the coming game session - Chaotic troops are in control of Ribcage, at least for the moment, commiting atrocities and generally raping and pillaging their way across the city. Would this cause a shift in its position? Seeing as these acts are more evil than even the normal goings on in the city, would the plan backfire spectaculary and the city shift into Baatezu (I don't know if it would take the portal with it)? Or would chaos effect it more? I don't imagine a city simply jumping from one end of the Outlands to the other, and I don't know how much of a alignment shift would be needed for a town to slide into another plane or position, anyway.

(BTW, in case you were wondering how exactly the PC (a rather self absorbed knowledge-gathering obsessed wizard) fits into this, he doesn't entirely. He was accidently present during the so-called 'Battle of Sigil' when a 'tiefling' diplomat attempted to lead the Baatezu in the city back to Avernus through a portal in the Lower Ward, only to be intercepted by a Balor and assorted demons. The battle turned nasty (or rather even more nasty) when the tiefling turned out to a Bloodwyrm, and the resulting clash set fire to most of the ward, before the Lady appeared and flayed every last combatant (the one time she has ever appeared in any of my game sessions...). Throughout this, the PC attempted to use his magic to save as many civilians as he could from the raging inferno...

However, despite this, he decided not to postpone his planned trip to Ribcage (he has been searching for the components to create a magic item, and thought he had discovered one there), despite the fact that it was obvious that the town might become a target ("a wizard of my calibre is not swayed by the petty politics of the unenlightened" ... or something like that). He was in the town when it was stormed by chaotic mercaneries, and sustained some injuries. Ordinarily, he could just have teleported out or otherwise escaped, except one of his npc travelling companions is being held hostage in the cities Grand Hotel. Fleeing to the sewers he made contact with a motley group of unlikely allies, including an eladrin spy, several stranded adventurers of varying skills, race and alignment and various lawful evil types determined to single handedly liberate the town. A long debate, (most of last session) has led to a plan forming (in which it is obvious that everyone has a different motive...), obstentibly to liberate the town before the main Tanarri force arrives. The wizard, along with the eladrin, have decided to play along with the plan (which will devastate the town, lol) until they can make the rescue, and then get out as soon as they can...)

Anyway, assuming you got this far (lol), thanks for helping me answers one or other of those (rather wide...) questions...

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Thu, 2005-02-17 12:39
#2
ceratus
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Shifting the course of the blood war

Why does this sound like one big baatezu ambush to me? :twisted:

Anyway...I don't think the planes would be swayed by the tanar'ri influence so much to modify them. Ribcage, on the other hand, would likely shift into the Abyss, or perhaps some other non-lawful evil plane.

Thu, 2005-02-17 13:01
(Reply to #2) #3
LegatoX
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Shifting the course of the blood war

I would imagine that Ribcage would slowly slide around the circumference of the Outlands (well, there is no edge, but I think you know what I mean). But that Chaotic force would have to occupy the place for quite a while and get a massive amount of the power in the city to have a chance of changing.

For it's direction of shifting, you have to decide for yourself. Is the town becomming alot more chaotic overall in terms of the power structure? If so it's not going into Baator. As long as Order maintains some degree of power, the town won't be moving. The Gatetown will only go into Baator if the town is the best example of the lawful evil mindset it can be, with no taints of chaos or good in the power structure and the minds of the citizens.

Any time a Gatetown shifts away, a new one is ready to take it's place and the portal appears there.

It seems a little odd that the Yugoloths would be helping the Tanari "utterly crush" the Baatezu to such a degree. Are you going to have the 'loths turn stag and help the Baatezu right when the Tanari are in a vulnerable overconfident position? This would fit the Yugoloth mindset, keeping the war going is good for them, and it would help cripple both sides to some degree. The Yugoloths have to get something out of helping the Tanari, in the long run that is.

You want to be careful that neither side gets weakened to much. Remember that the Upper Planes do pay attention to the blood war, and a force of Archons or Eladrin or something should be picking up on something like this. I hope you plan to take this into account. Especially the lawful Upper Planers, I'd think they would be raiding the chaotic lower planars at this point a bit if things are as bad as you are portraying them. They wouldn't be "allies" of the Baatezu of course, but massive armies of chaotic lower planars moving across the outlands is bound to attract the attention of the lawful upper planars.

Remember that belief comes from all of the planes as well. Chaos can't "take over" when there are plenty of lawfuls in the prime and inners.

I would also think that some of the more lawful planes could be convinced to be allies as well for the baatezu. There would be no shortage of mercenaries on "The plane of floaty crashing cubes and carnage", and they definately have the "orderly" mindset. I imagine that forces could start pouring forth from Mechanus in order to maintain order since they are utterly opposed to chaos; with chaos just "invading" their half of the great ring, I don't know that the forces of Mechanus would just stand by.

I wouldn't think that the Lords of Nine would think of defeat as ineveitable. The battle sways back and forth all the time, sometimes looking as if one side is going to crush the other and then it swings back. They have all been around for a long time, they know the normal cycle of things, the normal "order" of things. The Lords of Nine aren't cowards who want to "save their skins", they are ultra powerful, more powerful than many of the abysal lords (maybe not the Powers). Chances are, something like this would lead to them all working harder and together, as opposed to the normal "cloak and dagger" they usually try to work on each other. Sure, one may see this as an opportunity to get rid of another Lord, but the chances of so many just banding together to rebel against the one Lord who has been there since who knows when . . . I dunno, it seems a little far fetched. You could definately work the angle of one or two of the Lords banding together though, just not many of them or else it would seem kind of goofy.

I'd recommend that you try to get ahold of the 2e "Faces of Evil: The Fiends". It's an awesome read, and has no actual statistics. It's all about the mindset of the fiends.

Thu, 2005-02-17 13:39
(Reply to #3) #4
Companero
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Shifting the course of the blood war

Thanks...

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It seems a little odd that the Yugoloths would be helping the Tanari "utterly crush" the Baatezu to such a degree. Are you going to have the 'loths turn stag and help the Baatezu right when the Tanari are in a vulnerable overconfident position?

Oh, absolutely... I can't imagine the Yugoloths staying fighting on one side for more than a couple of weeks... and they have kept out of the battle for Avernus.

However, the General has been offered something vastly powerful, both to attack the Baatezu at Blood Pass and then keep out of the following battles, and once the fallout from the Ribcage incident clears (assuming the PC survives) I plan to get him involved in trying to discover what that was, and neutralising it/ or stealing it...

Quote:
I would also think that some of the more lawful planes could be convinced to be allies as well for the baatezu. There would be no shortage of mercenaries on "The plane of floaty crashing cubes and carnage", and they definately have the "orderly" mindset. I imagine that forces could start pouring forth from Mechanus in order to maintain order since they are utterly opposed to chaos; with chaos just "invading" their half of the great ring, I don't know that the forces of Mechanus would just stand by.

Yeah - I agree, I don't think Mechanus would stand by and watch, and I think alot of the stimulus for a counter-attack would come from there - of course, if a bunch of Formians turned up on Avernus, i'm not sure that would be an improvement for the Baatezu, least not in the long run...

Quote:
You want to be careful that neither side gets weakened to much. Remember that the Upper Planes do pay attention to the blood war, and a force of Archons or Eladrin or something should be picking up on something like this. I hope you plan to take this into account.

I have thought about this quite alot, and I assumed that good forces would probably launch counter attacks against Tanari forces in the outlands, or straying away from the primary battlezone searching for alternative routes. On the other hand I can imagine there would be a disagreement about how to handle something like this - while this latest attack has made more headway than any other, it could still very easily fall apart, and I am sure that when it comes to the primary battles in Gehenna and Avernus, there would be a strong school of thought advocating staying out and letting them slaughter each other. Of course, others would disagree, and any celestial response might be fragmented.

The way I always imagine a Tanari army on the march is this - while they are winning, more will follow in exchange for glory, but if they suffer just one major defeat, the whole thing will collapse. Altough, at the end of this, I do think the Baatezu will have been weakened, altough it might not be immeadiatley obvious.

Thu, 2005-02-17 23:09
(Reply to #4) #5
Mechalich
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Shifting the course of the blood war

Quote:
Yeah - I agree, I don't think Mechanus would stand by and watch, and I think alot of the stimulus for a counter-attack would come from there - of course, if a bunch of Formians turned up on Avernus, i'm not sure that would be an improvement for the Baatezu, least not in the long run...

Not formians, Modrons, the Modrons have a Blood War army, and the first rule of warfare against Modrons is that the Modrons can't lose, because they take no permanent casualties from battle, except in those rare instances when a modron goes rogue. So, if the Baatezu are really in trouble the Modrons can send force after force to charge blindly into the Tanar'ri and hinder them without ever having their numbers weaken.

Fri, 2005-02-18 10:12
(Reply to #5) #6
Zjelani
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Shifting the course of the blood war

First off, this sounds like a fun campaign.

I wish I could remember what messageboard I saw it on and who to properly credit, but I remember an interesting discussion of what if the Blood War ended. One reply was that it never would truly end. I wish I could find the post that laid out the reasoning very well, but it basically boiled down to:

- Tanar'ri obliterate the baatezu
- That tanar'ri is a long way from the Abyss and many other races see the sudden void of baatezu as an opportunity to move into Baator
- So to keep the troops focused on defending the new territory as well as to keep the other races at bay, the tanar'ri leaders start imposing some structure and focus to the army.
- Say they manage to do impose that structure and maintain control of Baator. Well, the tanar'ri back home see what their former comrades have become and are disgusted and feel betrayed. So they attack.
- Consequently, after a brief pause, the Blood War starts again.

Throw in either the planes re-shaping the races a bit, or have the tanar'ri be so varied that the "ones back home" are pretty different from the ones who invaded Baator.

So the names and faces would change, but in the end, the Blood War would continue as it always has. I thought it would be great to spring on players the end of the Blood War. Only to have it inevitably restart a couple months later.

Back to the original plot you set out, I was trying to think of why the yugoloths would help the tanar'ri to such an extent. Just setting the tanar'ri up to be overconfident and overextended might be good, but what if perhaps the truth is that the Baatezu were gaining the upper hand and the yugoloths were re-balancing things? It wasn't outwardly apparent, but maybe in secret the Baatezu have a secret force in a place to do masive damage to the tanar'ri? Or they discovered/created a weapon so powerful that the yugoloths wanted to prevent them from using it? OR maybe the Baatezu were distracted by something - perhaps getting close to discovering the truth of the yugoloths, and so they wanted to focus them back on the Blood War as a convenient distraction?

Just some thoughts.

-Ken

Fri, 2005-02-18 15:55
(Reply to #6) #7
Companero
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Shifting the course of the blood war

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Tanar'ri obliterate the baatezu - That tanar'ri is a long way from the Abyss and many other races see the sudden void of baatezu as an opportunity to move into Baator - So to keep the troops focused on defending the new territory as well as to keep the other races at bay, the tanar'ri leaders start imposing some structure and focus to the army. - Say they manage to do impose that structure and maintain control of Baator. Well, the tanar'ri back home see what their former comrades have become and are disgusted and feel betrayed. So they attack. - Consequently, after a brief pause, the Blood War starts again.

Heh - I like that idea, rather than the rulers shaping the plane, the plane shapes the rulers... It doesn't fit the current campaign, but its definately something to think about...

Quote:
Back to the original plot you set out, I was trying to think of why the yugoloths would help the tanar'ri to such an extent. Just setting the tanar'ri up to be overconfident and overextended might be good, but what if perhaps the truth is that the Baatezu were gaining the upper hand and the yugoloths were re-balancing things? It wasn't outwardly apparent, but maybe in secret the Baatezu have a secret force in a place to do masive damage to the tanar'ri? Or they discovered/created a weapon so powerful that the yugoloths wanted to prevent them from using it? OR maybe the Baatezu were distracted by something - perhaps getting close to discovering the truth of the yugoloths, and so they wanted to focus them back on the Blood War as a convenient distraction?

Basically, metagaming horribly here, over the course of the campaign the pc has dealt with large numbers of demons, devils, celestials and even ithillids, but Yugoloths have only appeared in the background - once a couple of lower yugoforms (I hope thats a word...heh) serving as (dishonest and only outwardly loyal Eye-wink ) bodyguards for a corrupt Sigil official, but thats as far as encounters have gone, and to be honest I want to run a major story arc around them. I have a rough idea for where to go with this, and a fair amount of time to think this through (I expect rescuing his travelling companion and escaping from occupied Ribcage will take up most of next session, and the inter-personal fallout of the affair will take up even more time to sort out, even if the plan works perfectly... its fun having a decent player who cares about stuff beyond fighting, even if hes the only one I can find...)

My rough idea involved the General of Gehenna being offered something remarkably powerful in exchange for his services in the one critical battle... and not necessarily getting it (the magnitude of the offer blinded him to whom he was dealing with?). Of course, in that case he would turn right around and attack the demons - ironically saving the devils... however, I think I like the superweapon idea you just posted much more Laughing out loud ...

Thinking along those lines...

The PC might be hired, possibly by one of the factions (the idea of the factions was what attracted us to Planescape in the first place, so we decided just to pretend the faction war never happened...) to investigate why so many Yugoloths would commit to such an action - presumably expecting to uncover some kind of deal (I have an Anarchist journalist written up somewhere who I would like to use sometime...), and instead uncovering evidence of the Baatezu superweapon... after that the story might entail entering Baator, passing through Dis under siege, braving streetfights and magical snipers (or their equivalent lol, i'm writing this down as it comes to mind...), attempting to break into some kind of library were the information is being held - of course, its currently being used as an impromptu command post by one side or other, so just getting there might not be enough... then a journey right into the lowest level of the Nine Hells to find the weapon, almost completed, then perhaps getting out in time to warn the Celestials before it is used (who can then launch a raid and destroy it - I can't see even a level 19 wizard being able to take out something as well defended as this would be on his own...).

Do you think that might work?

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