Since they have so many ties to Elemental Air, I suspect they are native to that plane, but I can't find any proof one way or another... it's kind of strange that the main opponents of the Outer-planar Queen of Chaos would come from the Inner Planes, but oh well...
Where do the Wind Dukes of Aquaa live?
Thu, 2007-07-12 11:38
#1
Where do the Wind Dukes of Aquaa live?
Fri, 2007-07-13 10:04
#3
Where do the Wind Dukes of Aquaa live?
Whoah... rip, where'd you get that the Aphanacts turned into the Baatezu? I thought that they had more to do with the Inevitables and that the Baatezu were 'loth trash. Could you point me in the right direction for a more official source (TSR, WotC, or Paizo) where it says that the Obyriths fought pure lawful entities other than the Wind Dukes (and, perhaps, Baatorians)
As for the Wind Dukes of Aaqa... they never seemed to fit in for me. They don't seem to be 'pure' elementals but rather a form of genie, if a very powerful one. Their strong attraction to Law is even stranger on the Inner Planes. Even thought archomentals and the like have strong alignments, they are not their most defining traits. The more ancient Wind Dukes should have been purer element based, rather than 'sullied' by the strong alignments of the Outer Planes. It would make more sense, to me anyway, if the Wind Dukes migrated to the Inner Planes from Mechanus or Arcadia.
Fri, 2007-07-13 10:28
#4
Where do the Wind Dukes of Aquaa live?
Whoah... rip, where'd you get that the Aphanacts turned into the Baatezu? I thought that they had more to do with the Inevitables and that the Baatezu were 'loth trash. Could you point me in the right direction for a more official source (TSR, WotC, or Paizo) where it says that the Obyriths fought pure lawful entities other than the Wind Dukes (and, perhaps, Baatorians)
That's from Fiendish Codex II, where it described the crusades led by Asmodeus against the primal demons. Asmodeus and his armies are called "angels" there, but this is before Law was corrupted by Good or Evil, so presumedly he was a servant of pure Law. The aphanacts are primal beings of Law described as looking like angels, so they'd be an appropriate identification.
It would make more sense, to me anyway, if the Wind Dukes migrated to the Inner Planes from Mechanus or Arcadia.
That's possible, but as I said, there's already a primal race from Mechanus (or, more likely, the plane of pure Law that would one day evolve into Mechanus) that was also involved in the war. I'm satisfied with the idea that the vaati (Wind Dukes) were elemental beings who preceded the very existence of the Outer Planes, born from the first whispers of alignment in the still-forming multiverse.
Currently they only dwell in one place, a secluded valley called the Vale of Aaqa on the Material Plane. The races is almost extinct.
They originated in the Elemental Plane of Air, and at one point they dominated all of the Elemental Planes, the genie races bowing to them. Perhaps it was this that attracted the attention of the obyriths.
Simultaneously, a war began between the obyriths and the primal beings of Law from Mechanus, who would later become the baatezu. So the forces of Chaos were fighting the Wind Dukes and these other beings (possibly called aphanacts) at the same time.
Note that in Erik Mona's original tentative history, the war between Law and Chaos originated in the Inner Planes before the Outer Planes had even formed. So it wasn't an outer planar race fighting an inner planar one - it was two inner planar races, two species of elementals dividing along lawful and chaotic lines. This struggle might have actually created the Outer Planes, probably long before the Material Plane had fully formed. This part of the history didn't really appear in Fiendish Codex I. What happened to the original chaotic elementals is unclear; perhaps the Wind Dukes exterminated them, or perhaps they survive as one of the chaotic elementals of the present day. Perhaps the primal elementals of Chaos were the genies, who were conquered by the Wind Dukes for a time.