Monstrous Monday: Demon Prince Orcus fo AD&D 2nd Edition

Going back a bit to do some more level setting and based on a conversation I had last week with a friend.  He was looking for some stats for Orcus for 2nd Edition AD&D.  I have stats for all versions of AD&D/D&D for him, but none for 2nd Ed.  I had always felt that Orcus was dead throughout all of 2nd Edition (thanks to The Throne of Bloodstone) but the events of Dead Gods brought him back. 

I did have some older AD&D 2nd Ed stats I had created in something I call the "Red Book."  The notes are largely cribbed from 1st Edition sources. 

To rebuild this I am going to also look to other sources like Swords & Wizardry and Pathfinder.  

Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead

Climate/Terrain:  The Abyss
Frequency:  Unique
Organization:  Solitary
Activity Cycle:  Any
Diet:  Carnivore
Intelligence:  Supra-genius (20)
Treasure:  P, S, T, U
Alignment:  Chaotic evil
No. Appearing:  1 (Unique)
Armor Class:  -6
Movement:  18, Fl 36 (B)
Hit Dice:  25 (130 hp)
THAC0:  7
No. of Attacks:  3 (see below)
Damage/Attack:  1d10+3/1d10+3/2d4 + special
Special Attacks:  Fear, spell-like powers, summon and command undead, Wand of Orcus
Special Defenses:  +3 or better weapons to hit
Magic Resistance:  85%
Size:  L (15' tall)
Morale:  Fearless (19-20)
XP Value:  36,000

Orcus is the Prince of the Undead, and it said that he alone created the first undead that walked the worlds.

Orcus is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) and most powerful of all demon lords. He fights a never-ending war against rival demon princes that spans several Abyssal layers. From his great bone palace he commands his troops as they wage war across the smoldering and stinking planes of the Abyss. Orcus spends most of his days in his palace, rarely leaving its confines unless he decides to leads his troops into battle (which has happened on more than one occasion). Most of the time though, he is content to let his generals and commanders lead the battles.

Appearance:  Orcus is a grossly fat demon lord, some 15 feet tall.  His huge grey body is covered with coarse goatish hair.  His head is goat-like, although his horns are similar to those of a ram.  His great legs are also goat-like but his arms are humanoid.  Vast bat wings sprout from his back, but these are usually tucked out of sight when he is not in flight.   His long, snaky tail is tipped his a poisonous head.

Combat: It is probable that this creature is one of the most powerful and strongest of all demons. If he so much as slaps with his open hand the blow causes 1-4 hit points of damage. His terrible fists can deliver blows of 3-13 hit points. If he uses a weapon he strikes with a bonus of +6 to hit and +8 on damage. Additionally, his tail has a virulent poison sting (-4 on all saving throws against its poison), and his tail strikes with a 15 dexterity which does 2-8 hit points each time it hits.

Orcus prefers to fight using his wand. (see below)

Orcus radiates a 60-foot-radius aura of fear (as the spell). A creature in the area must succeed on a saving throw vs. Spell or be affected as though by a fear spell (caster level 30th). A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by Orcus’s fear aura for one day. 

Orcus can, at will, use any one of the following powers: 

Orcus can command or banish undead as a 15th-level cleric, controlling up to 150 HD worth of undead at one time. He casts spells as a 15th level cleric and 12th level magic-user, and can use the following magical abilities at will: animate dead, charm monster, darkness, dispel magic, ESP, fear, feeblemind (1/day), lightning bolt (12 die), speak with dead (as 20th level cleric), symbol (any) and wall of fire.

Additionally, he has an 80% chance of gating in any demon of type I-V (but only a 50% chance of gating a type VI or VI and will never call upon another prince). 

Orcus furthermore is able to summon the undead, for he is their prince. If random calling is desired by the referee the following is suggested:

• 4-48 Skeletons
• 4-32 Zombies
• 4-24 Shadows
• 2-8 Vampires

Habitat/Society: When not warring against rival demon princes, Orcus likes to travel the planes, particularly the Material Plane. Should a foolish spellcaster open a gate and speak his name, he is more than likely going to hear the call and step through to the Material Plane. What happens to the spellcaster that called him usually depends on the reason for the summons and the power of the spellcaster. Extremely powerful spellcasters are usually slain after a while and turned into undead soldiers or generals in his armies.

He has a following of human worshippers as well; warlocks, death masters, necromancers, and evil priests.

Ecology: Orcus controls several levels of the Abyss he claims as his own including the 113th and 333rd layers.  When not at war with the forces of good and life he wars with all the other demon princes for control of all the Abyss.  Orcus' goal is to see all life extinguished and death reigns supreme. 

Wand of Orcus: Mighty Orcus wields a huge black skull-tipped rod that functions as a +3 heavy mace. It slays any living creature it touches if the target fails a saving throw. Orcus can shut this ability off so as to allow his wand to pass into the Material Plane, usually into the hands of one of his servants. Further, the Wand has the following magical powers: 3/day—animate dead, darkness and fear; 2/day—unholy word.

--

Might need to tweak it some for my own uses, but this looks like it works well enough.  These stats are not perfect by any stretch, but they feel pretty close. 

I reject the fan theory that so many have adopted that Orcus was once human.  Though this does fit in with the Mystara/BECMI Immortals Set version of Orcus. Though THAT Orcus also has 39 HD and 620 HP.  

I prefer my own where he is a remnant of a former god. He has memories of God-like power, but nothing else.  After all according to Milton Orcus was in Hell when the Devils first arrived.

In any case, I do see that Orcus became more powerful after the events of Dead Gods. Maybe also explaining why he went from being "immensely fat and covered in grey hair" to the red demon of 21st century D&D. 

Links

• Orcus: Demon Prince of Undeath
• Orcus: Swords & Wizardry 
• Orcus: Forgotten Realms
• Orcus: Pathfinder
• Orcus on the Other Side
• Orcus for Unisystem
• Fight Against Orcus
• Tales of Brave Ulysses
• Deep Dive - Orcus

One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon

Let's partake in a thought experiment.  I am going to take the Gods as written from The Deities & Demigods and take them on a little trip.

This thought experiment, or Gedankenexperiment, as Einstien was fond of saying, was designed to cover a thought I had going back to my first reading of Norse Myths.   That thought was what if the Norse Gods and Greek Gods were the same groups of gods represented in different parts of the world?

Roman-Norse Pantheon 

Imagine if you will some Roman Pagans, say circa 300-500 CE.  While Christianity is becoming the official religion of the Empire, not everyone is taking up the Christian Gods. There is still a mix of Pagan Roman gods, Greek Gods, local gods and spirits, house gods, and more.  The further you are from Rome (and later also Constantinople) the more likely you are to still hold on to your local gods.

Now, far to the North, there are the Nordic-Germanic tribes.  They are the "barbarians" of Roman lore, they want Rome's treasures, its power.  But most of these people just want to find new lands to grow food on.  While the Viking raids to England and Ireland are so stamped into our collective subconscious (and for many of us, our DNA) there were other forrays into other lands.  Some we know went South.  But the bulk of these did not happen till 800s CE when most of Europe was firmly Christianized.  We do know that the Romans had interactions with the Norse and made connections between their respective sets of Gods. Romans were rather practical when came to religion.   

We also know that the Norse, when confronted with Christianity adopted a uniquely Viking view of Jesus, recasting him as a great and powerful chieftain or king. 

So let's imagine a time. Sometime after 300 CE but maybe before 900 CE.  The Northmen are not all Viking raiders and the Romans are not all Christian.  I joke that there is a time when this would be all true, likely for about 6 hours on a Thursday in June 634 CE, but go with me on this trip anyway.  We have a group of Roman pagans moving north, a group of Northmen heading south.  They both drift west a bit and end up in the Black Forest region of Southern Germany.  Here they meet and instead of going to war, they build a community.  Here their beliefs find common ground and since both groups are polytheists, they accept each other's Gods.  Soon. The gods, like the people, become one.  

First conceit: Since they did not go to war when first meeting their war gods on both sides will seem more "reasonable" than their antecedents.   

Now keep in mind that at this time there were versions of the "Norse" gods in these Germanic areas. We know that Wotan and Woden would change and become Odin of the Norse.  So bringing these gods "back down" is almost an unnecessary step. They were already here in a different form.  Bu this allows me to focus on the names they have in the D&DG.  Plus if I need to "smooth things out" I can use the Germanic versions.

Second conceit: While here this group of pagans will speak a version of Old German. Both groups picked it up "along the way."

While I want to focus on the names in the Deities and Demigods, I am going to allow myself to step outside of that to make for a better pantheon.  Of course, life, especially when it comes to the Gods and syncretism, is never so ordered.  But as we have seen with the D&D pantheons in the past, such order is often implied or imposed.

Some of this flows from some reading I was doing around the same time I discovered D&D.  I had found this book of world myths. It had the familiar Greek, but it also introduced me to the Norse myths for the first time.  This book also had the tale of Beowulf in the back. I began to think there was a continuity between these three separate, but not entirely separate really, groups of tales. 

I should also note that these gods have similarities to each other not just because they were all invented by people that had similar experiences, but they all draw their inspiration from the same roots of an earlier Proto Indo-European pantheon of gods.  I am not trying to recreate these PIE gods here, but I will lean heavily on that research to inform my choices.  For this reason I am also including Celtic gods in this mix for now BUT I am not explaining that connection just yet.  Though we do know that the Celtic Hallstatt culture and was in this area at this time and this grew out of the La Tène culture from earlier.  Likely though the gods were not using the names in D&DG. I am so everyone here knows what I am talking about. I do like that there are three mythoi involved here.

Who's In Charge?

Let's start with who is the leader of this combined pantheon.  We know from historical records that it was Thor, or more to the point, Thunor or Donar, and not Odin, that was the chief god of the Germanic peoples. Odin/Wotan would come along much later (8th to 9th centuries).  This is good since already there was a lot of conflating of Thor/Thunor with Zeus/Jupiter. Thursday for example is both Thor's day and sacred to Jupiter.  From this notion, we can move on in thought experiments to make other associations.  

Now I am fully aware I am taking a historical god to make a precedent for game gods.  This would be academic dishonestly since I have made no claim, nor provided support why it is ok for me to do this.  Save for one.  This is not an academic treatise.  I am building something for a game, and for AD&D 1st Edition as it appears in the Deities & Demigods in particular. The Thor/Thunor/Jupiter connection is only the pin I am hanging everything else on. 

The Gods

I am going to use the abbreviated "stat block" I used in One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 2 when I described the pantheon of  Greco-Egyptian Gods.   Also considering that I am having this all happen somewhere in Germany I am going to give these gods German names.  They are modern German names to be sure, I am not going to try to deconstruct 7th Century German when I have enough trouble remembering how to speak 20th (yes I know what I said) Century German.

While they have gods they are syncretized from they take on their own personalities.  Thor could be a bit slow at times but was never cruel (unless you were a giant) and Zeus could be a loving father, but a terrible husband with a mean streak and a temper. 

Unser Vater
Greater God
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Worshipper Alignment: Any Good (all)
Domains: Thunder, Lightning, Sky (including storms and rains), Warriors
Symbol: A Thunderbolt
Greek/Roman: Zeus/Jupiter
Norse: Thor, with a dash of Odin
Celtic: The Dagda
PIE: Dyēws

Unser Vater, "our father," is the chieftain of the gods. He rules because he is strong and powerful.  He keeps Der Hüne at bay and protects those who pay him homage. He tries to be good and just but he has a temper that can rage out of control.  He can usually be calmed by his wife Herde Oberin.

Other Gods follow.

Hüne Vater
Lesser (Intermediate) God
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Worshipper Alignment: Any evil
Domains: Creation, destruction
Symbol: Fire
Greek/Roman: Chronos/Saturn
Norse: Surtr
PIE: Archdemon

Hüne Vater is the father of the current generation of the Gods. He killed his father and we in turn defeated by his own son. He is the leader of Die Hüne. Before his defeat he cursed the gods and all humankind with death. In Proto-Indo-European myths, he is the Archdemon.  He sits imprisoned in exile. 

Großvater & Großmutter
Lesser God
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (Evil)
Worshipper Alignment: Any 
Domains: Father of Die Hüne (the Titans/Jötunn), Chaos
Symbol: The night sky
Greek/Roman: Caelus/Uranus 
Norse: Ymir
Others: Tiamat

Großvater/Großmutter is the name given to the quasi-anthropomorphic manifestation of the father/mother of the Die Hüne (the Titans/Jötunn).  He was destroyed by his son Vater Hüne to make the night sky.

Herde Oberin
Greater Goddess
Alignment: Lawful Good
Worshipper Alignment: Any good 
Domains: Home, hearth, women, childbirth
Symbol: Distaff
Greek/Roman: Hera/Juno, Hestia 
Norse: Frigg
PIE: Diwōnā

Herde Oberin is the wife of Unser Vater and one of a trinity of Goddess.  She represents the Mother aspect of the trinity and is the protector of home and hearth and the family.  She is responsible for all things that happen within the home.  Unser Vater may be the chieftain of the gods, but in the home her word is law. 

Mutter Natur
Greater Goddess
Alignment: Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: All
Domains: Nature, the wild
Symbol: Tree or a sheath of grain
Greek/Roman: Demeter/Ceres
Norse: Frigg with bits of Odin
Celtic: Danu
PIE: Dhéǵhōm

Mutter Natur is the mother goddess of all of nature.  She is sister to Vater Hüne and aunt (and maybe mother) to Unser Vater. She is an old Goddess who provides and destroys at her own times of choosing. Newer religions believe they control or tame her, but the people of the forest know better. 

Note: I am undecided on whether or not Herde Oberin and Mutter Natur are not aspects of the same goddess. Often times you see gods and goddesses getting reduced as the pantheons age.  BUT also you see gods and goddesses splitting off.  In this case, I am keeping them separate for now.

Ôstara (Geliebte)
Lesser (Intermediate) Goddess
Alignment: Neutral Good
Worshipper Alignment: All
Domains: Spring, Rebirth, the Dawn
Symbol: Half-risen sun or an Egg
Greek/Roman: Persephone/Proserpina with aspects of Dionysus / Bacchus
Norse: Ēostre and bits of Baldur.
Celtic: Brigit and Ceridwen
PIE: Hausos

Ôstara is the daughter of Mutter Natur and one that has retained her old name.  She is the goddess of the Spring, the Dawn, and rebirth.   Her title is "Geliebte" which means "beloved."   Persephone/Proserpina and Baldur are both loved by the gods and their "deaths" greatly affect all involved.

Liebhaberin
Lesser (Intermediate) Goddess
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Worshipper Alignment: Any good, lovers
Domains: Love, sex, sexuality, conception
Symbol: hand mirror or fire
Greek/Roman: Aphrodite/Venus 
Norse: Freya
Celtic: Brigit and Áine

Liebhaberin is the forever young patroness of love and sex. She serves as the Maiden in the trinity of Goddesses.  She is the spring maiden that stirs the blood and brings the world back to life. She is the patroness of nymphs and dryads. 

Note:  Again, I am unsure whether or not Ôstara and Liebhaberin are just different aspects of the same goddess.  

Helga
Lesser (Intermediate) Goddess
Alignment: Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any, witches
Domains: Death, magic, underworld
Symbol: woman's face in a hood
Greek/Roman: Hecate, Hades
Norse: Hel, Frau Holt, Heiðr
Others: Isis
Celtic: The Triple Goddess* (reconstruction)

Helga is the Witch Goddess, the Ghost Queen, and the Crone of the trinity.  She knows all secrets since they are whispered to her by the dead.  Thus she knows all the secrets of magic.

Hüter
Lesser (Intermediate) God
Alignment: Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: None
Domains: Death
Symbol: Skull
Greek/Roman: Hades/Pluto, Hermes/Mercury
Norse: Njord, Odin
Celtic: Arawn
Others: Osiris

Hüter is the dispassionate lord of the dead.  He is neither good nor is he evil. His role is to make sure the dead stay dead. Therefore undead are blasphemous to him. He controls the underground realm and thus all riches that come from the ground are his.

Betrüger
Lesser (Intermediate) God
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any
Domains: Trickery
Symbol: Fox
Greek/Roman: Hermes/Mercury
Norse: Loki/Hermod
Others: Reynard the Fox (though this is about 900 years too early for Reynard)

Betrüger is the trickster of the gods.  He often appears in the form of a talking fox. His jokes can be somewhat dangerous, but he is rarely cruel.

Kriegskönig
Lesser (Intermediate) God
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any, warriors
Domains: War, Battle
Symbol: Sword
Greek/Roman: Ares/Mars
Norse: Tyr/Vidar
Celtic: Nuada

Kriegskönig, the War Lord, is the general of Unser Vater's armies. He commands legions to fight against Der Hüne.  He lives for war and when he is not involved in a war he is looking to create new wars. 

Note: Because my two sets of travelers did not immediately go to war with each other when they met this tempers the way the ward god is looked at.  He is not a warmongering asshole like Ares nor even the god of justice that is Tyr.  War is unfortunately a reality of life and one that must be respected or it quickly gets out of hand.

Jäger
Lesser (Intermediate) God
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any, hunters
Domains: the sun, hunting, poetry
Symbol: Sun
Greek/Roman: Apollo
Norse: Freyr/Bragi/Uller
Celtic: Nuada 
PIE: Sehaul

Jägerin
Lesser (Intermediate) God
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any, women, hunters
Domains: Hunting, women, gathering Die Kriegerin
Symbol: Cresent Moon
Greek/Roman: Artemis/Diana and bits of Athena/Minerva
Norse: Freya / Skaði
Celtic: The Morrigan
PIE: Mehanot

Jäger and Jägerin are the twin god and goddess of the sun and moon respectively. They are also the god and goddess of the hunt since hunting in this area is important. They are based on both sets of twins Apollo and Artemis/Diana from the Greco-Roman and Freyr and Freya from the Norse.  If there were elves in German at this time then they are the gods of them as well. 

When needed Jägerin can don the armor of war and gather Die Kriegerin, the Goddesses of war (much like the Valkeries).  When the moon eclipses the sun it is said that Jägerin has put up her shield to protect her and her brother in battle. 

Others include, 

Schmied (Hephaestus/Vulcan and Wayland and Goibhnie) the God of Smiths.  I really should give him more detail. 

Vater Meeren (Poseidon/Neptune and Njord, Ægir, and Rán and Manannan Mac Lir) the God of the Sea (lesser importance here). 

Verwildert (Pan/Faunus and Freyr/Óðr/Vættir and Péhausōn) the God of Wild Nature and protector of wild places (greater importance now). 

Magni Stärke (Heracles and Magni) and Muthi (Iphicles and Modi) are the twin demi-gods of Strength and Courage respectively. Bits of Romulus and Remus and Hengist and Horsa are also here. 

Siege (Nike/Victory and Sigyn) and Glücke (Tyche/Fortuna and Hamingja) are the twin lesser goddesses of Victory and Luck respectively.

Fata Norne (The Fates and The Norns) are the three Fates. Even the gods have to answer to the Fates.

Die Hüne are the Titans and the Giants of both myths.  Primordial beings of great power that the gods defeated but still trouble them.  In this myth, the Gods fought Die Hüne and brought order out of chaos. These are not just giants and titans, these creatures are the demons of this mythology.  

Jäger and Jägerin are twins.  Magni and Muthi are twin brothers. Nike and Tyche are twin sisters. These sets are all examples of the Divine Twins we see in many, many myths. Something I like to include in many of the myths I create. 

I like it. It combines a lot of things that I have scattered notes on here and there. This also explains why this one has taken me a few months to write (it was Part 1 of this series at one point). I have notes dating back to the late 80s on a wholly new pantheon I was creating.  This is not that pantheon, but it is a good approximation to what I wanted there.  It's not the same, but it fits in the same sized hole.

Right now it is a little too "clean" and ordered.  There is no drama with these gods. Granted this is the same as what you could read in the Deities & Demigods, but we know the stories are much messier. 

I might need to come back to this one sometime. It would work well in my games to be honest and I even have some ideas on how to incorporate the ideas of Sol Invictus into this to set up one of my favorite themes, the battles of Monotheism vs Pagan Polytheism.  

If I write more and can come up with a stat block I like I might release it under Creative Commons or the OGL so others can add to it.  I hope to do more than just randomly recreate the PIE gods with new names.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism

• Syncretism Part 1, The Gods of Faerûn
• Syncretism Part 2, the Greco-Egyptian Gods
• Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• Syncretism Part 4, Orcus and Dispater
• Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods

This Old Dragon: Retrospective, Devils and the Nine Hells

It's the last full week of Halloween (October to you mundanes out there) so what better topic than the go over all of the Devils that have appeared in the pages of Dragon Magazine. 

This Retrospective could go on for a long time, so I think I am going to limit myself to mostly 1st Edition treatments.  Thanks to TSR bowing to the moral panic of the time we got exactly one article about Devils proper that I can find for the 2nd Ed days.  They pick back up for D&D 3rd Ed, but that is getting beyond the scope of "This Old Dragon."

"The Dragon" Days

These were some of the earliest discussions on the Devils and the Nine Hells. They typically coincide with the release of the AD&D 1st Edtion Monster Manual when we introduced devils to D&D for the first time. Demons had already been added in Eldritch Wizardry for OD&D and had become a staple as these articles show.  This also set the divide of Chaotic Evil Demons and Lawful Evil Devils that persists to this day.  But before we get to devils proper, let's have a look at some early articles on Demons.

The Dragon #13

This issue comes to us from April 1978.  This issue is notable in our discussions for two reasons. First is an ad in the back for the Monster Manual and secondly, there is the brief one-page article on Demon creation.  Ok, so not devils, but the same logic could apply. 

The Dragon #20

I covered this one in a proper This Old Dragon a little bit back. In this issue we have Demonology made easy; or, How To Deal With Orcus For Fun and Profit by Gregory Rihn.  This expands the above article and makes it more AD&D than OD&D.  Again these are demons, but the same rules can apply to devils.

The Dragon #23

This is the third attempt at a random demon system, this time from Gary himself. This one draws from the first two. Random Generation of Creatures from the Lower Planes is exactly what it says on the tin really.  We should make a note here. This is for creatures of the Lower Planes, not just demons.

The Politics of Hell

Dragon #28, or more specifically for me, The Best of Dragon Vol. II gave us a landmark article that is almost entirely fluff; The Politics of Hell by Alexander von Thorn. Mr. von Thorn's only other contribution to Dragon would be 10 issues later with some skill for Traveller. He continued working, mostly on GURPS, and is still active online.  

This was a landmark article that among other things it lets us know why Asmodeus, a lesser demon from the Tobit originally, was the ruler of Hell and where Satan was.  The mythology presented here is extremely Judeo-Christian, so that may or may not work for a lot of games and gamers.  It did however introduce me to Astaroth and by extension Astarte. 

Dragon #42 would make a good choice for a future This Old Dragon.  I'll have to see if I have it in my big old box of Dragons.  This is the October 1980 Halloween-themed issue and has a few articles on Devils and even features on of the most famous pictures of Orcus ever.

The article "Demons, Devils and Spirits" comes to us first from Tom Moldvay.  This one features four new spirits that are Lawful Good, Neutral, Chaotic Evil, and Lawful Evil. So a full house!  Ashleigh Parker is next with The Possessors, or demons that can possess others.  Lewis Pulsipher wraps it up with Patron Demons, a forerunner to what we will see in warlock pacts

The Nine Hells by Ed Greenwood

Not since Dragon #28's The Politics of Hell did Devils and Nine Hells get as much attention as they did in the pages of Dragons #75 and #76.  There is a faint hint of the Realms here, but not so much that I felt this was world-specific.  In fact, in the summer of 1983, we were still a couple more years away from the Forgotten Realms being a thing for the rest of us.

These two articles cover every layer of the Nine Hells in descending order and discuss the Dukes that rule them, their consorts, their advisors, and even some of the other devils that can be found here.  There are shades of Dante's Inferno here but this is pure D&D.

This series casts such a long shadow that one would be forgiven if they forgot that Gary opened the series with the Devils that would appear in the upcoming Monster Manual II.  This includes the Abishai devils, which are the spawn of Tiamat.   Even though in my personal campaigns I have taken Tiamat out of Hell, the Abishai remain and are still her spawn. 

Combining these we can see there is a certain level of world-building that has gone on past the publications of books like the Deities & Demigods.  In particular, all non-Devil Gods have been kicked out of the Hells.  I took this a step further and even removed Tiamat and placed her on her own plane.

The articles are long and just filled with great information.  It would not be until the later AD&D 2nd Ed years that we would get this much detail on Devils.  

For Dragon #400, Wizards reprinted the entire series, with AD&D 1st ed stats.

Dragon #91

Greenwood (and Gygax) are back a little more than a year later.  Gary has a revised Goristro demon from Monster Manual II. But the big news is Ed has more Nine Hells with some details left out of the original series. It is quite a long one to be honest.  Of note for me there is a devil "Gargoth" that should replace "Astaroth" from the Politics of Hells article. We are told that Astaroth is a demon prince, but that is all.  Astaroth/Astarte just can't catch a break at all.

This is followed by Eight Devilish Questions, something of a FAQ about devils. 

Interestingly enough, this is also the issue that Ed gives us the sword that would change my campaign in very profound ways; Demonbane.

What the Hell is a Baatezu?

Dragon #223

It will be a little more than 10 years before we get anything else about Devils in the pages of Dragon.  This time it is a similar article to Politics of Hell but the new Lords of the Nine only have a little connection to old lords. Some are the same like Dis, others are related, like Fierana, and others still are new or so heavily disguised they might as well be new (Levistus and the Dark Lord respectively).

Honestly, it wasn't until Wizards of the Coast bought TSR that we ever got proper Devils back.  These lords though have been woven back into the history of the Devils since 3e.  Even in this article the term "Devil" to mean these fiends is never used. 

Final Thoughts

Doing a retrospective like this is mostly just time-filling fluff unless I want some takeaways from it all. 

Cosmic Chicken

There seems to be a game of cosmic chicken going on in the early depictions of devils. While there are some that are different in their mythological origins, Geryon from Dante's Inferno and the Erinyes from Roman Myth to name two, the vast majority of these creatures, especially the ones in Dragon, are from Judeo-Christian sources.  That is of course except for The Devil himself.  The authors are willing to pour through all the Medieval demonologies for names, but when it comes to Satan they blink. That is except for one article.  I get it.  There is a lot of baggage with "The Devil" both for religious and cultural reasons.  If you are going to mine "The Inferno" and "Paradise Lost" then why leave out one of the main characters?

Though I will admit I have also struggled in using the Big D in my games, only because it needs to be something special.

Worlds Apart

While a lot of "game rules" can be applied to both demons and devils equally, I am reminded in this retrospective that they are not, and should not be the same.  So while I was mentally looking over the differences and resorting (something that D&D 4e tried to do as well and met with some successes but most criticism from the fans) them into different categories, one category began to show itself in a surprising way.

Gary was better at creating demons and demon-like devils, Ed Greenwood was better at devils.  So for this reason I have decided that in my games demons take a larger interest in the world of Oerth (Greyhawk) and devils take more of an interest in the world of Toril (Forgotten Realms).  There are some exceptions of course.  Orcus has tried to make headway into the Realms many times.  But generally speaking in the games I have run and the D&D novels I have read, this seems to hold true.

The NPCs of "The Wild Beyond The Witchlight"

While "The Wild Beyond The Witchlight" has a lot going for it the reason, well one of the reasons, I really wanted it was because we were getting some official D&D 5th Edition stats to some classic NPCs, in particular, Skylla and Kelek two "iconic" characters that I am using in my War of the Witch Queens campaign. So I want to look at these old friends and maybe a couple of new ones too.  I'll leave poor old Thaco alone with his pipe and bitterness today.  Plus it is October and Horror month, so I really just want to talk about my favorites, the bad guys.

Who Are These Characters?

Long before the use of the term Iconic Characters to refer to reoccurring D&D characters in publication, there were names like Warduke, Strongheart, Ringlerun, and Kelek.  They appeared in the AD&D toy line from LJN and in other media including coloring books, stickers, adventures, and sometimes even the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.   It is also one of the reasons why I have to laugh when people today will see a stuffed Owlbear and complain that "WotC is selling out and ruining D&D."  They must have forgotten the Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons^™ Yoyo or Sunglasses.

Of all of these characters, there were a few standouts who got extra attention.  Ringlerun, the Good Wizard would be the cover boy for the Jeff Easley recover of the AD&D Player's Handook, although many at the time did not see the connection.  Kelek and Warduke would go on to get a guest spot on the D&D cartoon.  Warduke in particular would go on to be a minor celebrity in D&D iconic circles, getting 1st Ed (well...Basic really), 3rd Ed, and now 5th Ed Ed stats.

We would get all their official D&D Basic and Expert set stats, not AD&D, in the product AC1 The Shady Dragon Inn.  This was sort of a Rogues Gallery for BECMI D&D. You can read my review of it here. 

What I would like to do here today is compare these characters from the Wild Beyond the Witchlight to their Shady Dragon Inn and Quest for the Heartstone counterparts. 

The League of Malevolence

Heroes are great, but give me a "good" villain any day of the week.  Here are five iconic D&D villains. I will compare them to their D&D Basic versions to see what has changed and what has stayed the same.

Kelek

First up is the leader of the League of Malevolence, our Legion of Doom for D&D.  All these characters are Chaotic Evil which tracks well to their original alignments of Chaotic.  

In Basic D&D Kelek was an "Evil Sorcerer" of course at this time a "Sorcerer" was the level title for a 7th level Magic-user.  In 5e his class has become a Sorcerer.  This actually make a lot of sense and I approve of this change.  His stats are pretty much the same from edition to edition with the exception of his Charisma which goes from 7 to 17.  Charisma is the "prime" stat for sorcerers. Here he is described as a sociopath. That tracks with how I have seen him in the past. 

Part of this adventure is searching for a lost Unicorn horn. Well that was more or less the plot of the only D&D Cartoon to feature Kelek.  If nothing else I am saying he is still after unicorn horns. 

Skylla

Ah. My beloved Skylla.  I was the most excited and the most worried to see what the Wizard's dev team was going to do to you.  I have to say I am not disappointed. In Quest of the Heartstone, she is listed as a 6th level Warlock. Again, this time "Warlock" meaning 6th level magic-user. I do note that the TSR team avoided calling her a "Witch" at the time. Likely due to the Satanic Panic (but Warlock is fine?).  Like her former boss Kelek, the level title is translated to Class here and she is a 6th level Warlock. It fits well if you ask me. 

Skylla's stats are mostly the same with some tweaks to improve what she needs to be a Warlock.  Though the best changes are in her background.  For starters, her patron is not a demon (like I did) but rather with Baba Yaga (like...I did).  Additionally they tackle the Skylla/Charmay art issue head-on as sometimes Skylla goes by the name Charmay.  It's different than what I do with her, but it works out fine in my mind.

For the record, they got Skylla as close to a "witch: as D&D 5e's rules will currently allow.  I think they did a great job with her.  Kelek too.

Warduke

I do have to ask. Why does everyone like this guy so much? I never quite got it, but hey someone out there is looking at my nearly 30 posts about Skylla and scratching their head. 

That all being said, Warduke here is fairly impressive. I think the fans will be happy.  His stats are all the same in both versions.  His Dread Helm in Basic gave him Infravision to 60'.  The D&D 5e version only makes his eyes glow red.  Well, as I have said many times, I have a pencil.

Zarak

The half-orc Assassin was just an odd dude in Basic D&D that didn't have half-orcs as monsters, let alone as a character race, nor did it have assassins.  Yet there he is on page 18 of my Quest for the Heartstone. In D&D 5 he also has some strangeness. He is a full orc here BUT he is a short one to fit the AD&D/D&D Basic orcs.  Though he is still a Chaotic Evil Assassin.  His Dexterity gets a buff in 5e, but he loses his "boomerang" dagger!

Zargash

The evil cleric is back.  He is 7th level, so that makes him an evil Bishop. Zargash is still Chaotic Evil and he worships Orcus. Stats are tweaked a bit, but otherwise he is largely the same.

Missing Evil Characters™ include, Grimsword (Evil Knight aka Anti-Paladin), Zorgan (Evil Barbarian) and Drex (Evil Warrior) all from Quest for the Heartstone. Fox Fingers (Thief) and Raven (Evil Cleric) from Shaddy Dragon Inn.  In might be fun to make Raven. She is evil (but maybe not totally), and in love with Warduke. She was once friend with Mericon. Who is up in the next batch.

Valor's Call

Our group of good hereos had the real chance of being boring on one hand and overly sanctimonious on the other.  Thankfully were spared the worse.  They are not as interesting as our bad guys, but they are still fun and there are still some tweaks that make them worth reading and using.

Elkhorn

Our Lawful Good dwarf might have been one of the more popular figures right behind Warduke.  His stats are the same in both versions.  I do like how they took an essentially blank canvas and made a dwarf that is not a Flint Fireforge clone or a Dime store Thorin and gave him some goals.  He is a staunch enemy of evil.  If Strongheart is the founder of Valor's call, then Elkhorn is its heart.

Mercion

Ok. She is no Aleena, but Mercion is the cleric of the group. Her stats are tweaked a bit to give her better Strength and a higher level, but the Mercion in 5e is much more interesting.  In what I feel is a real homage to her Basic D&D roots, she does not worship a god but rather an ideal. She believes that truth gives life to artistry and beauty.  It's kind of a cool concept. If I were to use her as an NPC I would make sure she never lies about anything, ever. In fact, the brutal truth is better for her than a sweet lie. 

Molliver

Molliver the good thief was not in the Shady Dragon Inn product but can be found in the Quest for the Heartstone. In Quest no gender is given for Molliver, so in the 5e book their pronouns are "they."  I like it. I like it because a.) it works for the character and b.) it will certainly piss off the ones that need pissing off.

Molliver is also the only Chaotic Good member of the party. A "Lawful" thief does not make much sense really. Stats are largely the same with a buff for Dex. They even have their boots of levitation, handy for a thief.  

Ringlerun

Our Lawful Good Wizard from Basic remains a Lawful Good Wizard in 5e.  Never as interesting as Kelek, Elminster, or Mordenkainen he was on the cover of the Player's Handbook and a popular figure. 

His arm must be tired

He is still largely a generic wizard. He has kind of a James Randi in his later years look about him.  In my games he is dead; died of old age, but that doesn't really make sense for a wizard I guess.  I have some ideas forming that I might explore later.  Or not. After all he was never very interesting.

Strongheart

If I have one purely AD&D gripe it is that I rarely see anyone playing a paladin a good way.  "Sanctimonious Asshole" is not a Paladin. Neither is "Grim, tortured because there is so much evil in the world" isn't either.   I was worried that Strongheart was going to fall into one of those two camps. Or even worse, weak Sturm Brightblade clone.

Thankfully, that is not what we got. Instead, 5e Strongheart is the kind of paladin who is all about "we should get together to defeat evil because there is so much good in the world to enjoy!" He makes a good leader.  Again his stats are slightly tweaked to give him a better Strength (13 to 15) which, by the way, his D&D Basic stats were not good enough to make him an AD&D Paladin!

He was the character I was prepared to dislike the most (I have played paladins in EVERY version of D&D) and his actually was pretty cool.

It is mentioned that there are more characters in Valor's Call, off doing Good elsewhere.  They do have a solid feel of "The Superfriends" here. Not s big surprise I guess. Potential other members from Quest of the Heartstone include Peralay (Elf Fighter/Mage), Figgen (Halfling Fighter or Fighter/Thief), Deeth (Fighter), Hawkler (a totally NOT the Beastmaster Ranger), Bowmarc (Good "Crusader") and Valkeer, a half-giant warrior.  Of these Valkeer might the most fun to update to 5e.  Of these Peralay also appears in The Shady Dragon Inn.  

Other NPCs

There are plenty of other really interesting NPCs in this book.  Many I plan to lift and convert back to D&D Basic for use in my War of the Witch Queens campaign.

Burly the Hobgoblin

Before D&D, a hobgoblin was more a trickster as exemplified by Puck or Robin Goodfellow. In Witchlight we have Burly a Neutral Good Hobgoblin.  Ok, I'll go with that. My favorite bit is he is a hobgoblin who wears a pumpkin on his head.  Now, where have I seen that before?

Bugbear. Hobgoblin.  The differences are largely academic.

Likewise, Chucklehead is a goblin with a  head shaped like a taffy apple.

Iggwilv the Witch Queen

Yes! Getting Skylla was one thing, getting a new Iggwilv?  That's just crazy good.

This is Iggwilv after she has left the Abyss and has been hiding out in the Feywild for centuries. Here she is also known as Tasha, Natasha, and Zybilna.  There is an interaction here with Kelek that plays so well into my plans it is hard not to use it all.  There is an interesting Maiden-Mother-Crone aspect of Iggwilv here in the form of Tasha-Zybilna-Iggwilv.

Now I am perfectly happy with the formerly Chaotic Evil Iggwilv becoming more Chaotic Neutral as time goes on.  What I am not 100% sure about is her desire to abandon all her research on the Abyss and Demons in favor of learning about the Feywild instead.  But...I can live with it.

The Hour Glass Coven

I like them. Very interesting bunch of witches and hags.

The Minis

This is such an interesting group of NPCs it makes sense that there is also an equally interesting group of minis to go with them.  Sadly the supply chain breakdown has pushed many of these minis till 2022.  But I am really looking forward to them.

Kelek

Skylla

Zyblina

Looking forward to them.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 2, the Greco-Egyptian Gods

In the mythologies of the Ancient World, there are two that really stand out. The Greek and the Egyptian.  Both cultures grew to great prominence and fundamentally shaped our world.  Both had fascinating tales of gods, monsters, and heroes. 

Thanks to the trade and eventual rule of the Ptolemaic Pharos, we have a set of syncretized Greco-Egyptian gods.

While I would happily sit here and talk about these gods in an academic sense, my goal with OMG is really to present these from the lens of D&D, and from the Deities & Demigods in particular.  I am going to stick with gods that were actually worshiped, or at least recognized.  For this, I am going to rely on the scholarship of others, in particular, that of Dr. Kathrin Kleibl at the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven.  I am drawing heavily from her chapter (Chapter 41) in The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion.  She has written more, ok lots more, and her work could form the cornerstone of a new pantheon for a new Deities & Demigods II if such a thing were feasible. 

Ptolemaic Egyptian Mythos

In 323 BCE Alexander the Great controlled Egypt, his reign, however, was short-lived and his general Ptolemy took control and his family ruled until 31 CE when they were taken over by Rome. The famous Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII) was the last of their line. The Ptolemaic Pharos or Ptolemaic Kings were not Egyptian but were Greek.  They ruled and lived a Greek lifestyle.  Only Cleopatra is recorded to have actually learned some of the Egyptian languages.  The gods they created or were created around them had a unique blending of both Greek and Egyptian features.  Not just physical features, though that is true as well, but religious features and aspects.

Zeus-Serapis

By the time Ptolemy took the throne, there was already syncretism happing in the Egyptian worldview.  Serapis was a new popular god figure that combined Osiris with the Apis Bull.  In some places, Serapis had already supplanted Osiris as the main God.  Zeus-Serapis was an "artificial" conflating of Zeus with Serapis.  I say artificial because it was believed he was created by the ministers of Ptolemy I to have a God that could be worshipped by Greeks and Egyptians alike.  Newer research has shed some doubt on this interpretation, but for our uses here it does not matter his actual source, only what he became after that. 

Zeus was the god of the sky, Osiris was the god of the dead and the god of the Pharos.  Zeus-Serapis became the God of the Sun and of Healing. In this, he effectively takes over the "portfolios" of Apollo, Helios, and Ra. As protector of the dead, this also includes the benevolent nature of Hades.

Isis

Isis went from the wife of Osiris and potentially one of the most powerful goddesses in the myths to the Mother of the Gods and thus the pharos.  The Ptolemaic Pharos would often take on the epithet of "Sons of Isis."  Isis remained a popular goddess well into the Roman age.

Isis was also combined with Aphrodite, a goddess of unknown origin herself.  Given the connections between Isis and other goddess like Astarte, Innana, and Ishtar, this sets Isis up as the primary female divinity of the Ancient world. 

The "Mysteries of Isis" became a mystery religion that had some outward similarities to the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries associated with Demeter.  Her cult with tied to that of Zeus-Serapis, effectively becoming a Father and Mother figure to the Ptolemaic dynasty.  In this respect, she takes on the kinder natures of Hera and the dedication of Isis.  she would be the one called upon by women in childbirth. Especially when we consider what is going on with Horus.

Horus/Harpokrates

To complete the "holy trinity" of Father-Mother-Child the Greeks renamed Horus, or 'Har-pa-chered' literally "Horus the Child." as Harpokrates.  Where he was envisioned as a child-like divinity.  Gone was the Avenger Horus and now we get a proto-Christ Child in his place. 

Images of Isis nursing the infant Horus would later go on to influence the depictions of the Virgin Mary with infant Jesus.

Anubis/Hermanubis

While not equated with any Greek God in particular Anubis appears as a guide to Isis and advisor of Zeus-Serapis.  Some of Osiris' duties as lord of the dead get transferred to Annubis.

In some cases, we have a syncretized Hermes-Anubis, or Hermanubis, as a psychopomp and protector of the dead. 

Seth

Going a touch outside of Dr. Kleibl's work we get the god Seth. Also known as Set and Suketh and Setekh.  He originally was the good protector god of Upper Egypt. But this was 3,000 years before the Ptolemies.  More time between us and the Ptolemies to be honest.  Over the centuries Set changed from this benevolent god to the murderer of Osiris and the force of all evil and chaos in the world.   

Seth was the name the Greeks called him, and they associated him most with the monster Typhon.  Interestingly enough, I find no conflation with Seth and Hades inDr. Kleibl's text.  While both were seen as dark, chthonic figures, the Greeks in Egypt did not equate them.  But there are still some.

Set/Nephthys and Hades/Persephone

While the associations are not perfect there is a similarity between the relationship of Set and Nephthys with that of Hades and Persephone.   Both Nephthys and Persephone are considered goddesses of the underworld and mourning. Both are attached to husbands they would rather leave.  Both Hades and Set are complicated gods that are often viewed as evil. Both have been accused of raping or at least coercing their future wives.  

I have not found any direct relationship to suggest that they were synchronized, the option certainly feels valid.  The conflation of Set with Hades is one of the suspected origins of the Christian Devil; in particular the association of the devil in the desert or "the wilderness" (in Matthew) when he tempts Jesus. Set is the god of the desert and wild places.  Though I am not aware of any scholarship that has uncovered a synchronized Set-Hades (see Serapis above).

Nephthys was also commonly conflated with the Greek Nys, Goddess of the Night.  As it turns out "Nephthys" is already the Greek name for the Goddess the Egyptians knew as Nebt-het or Nebhet.

Hermes Trismegistus

Not part of Dr. Kleibl's work, but one that really put me on the road to this. Hermes Trismegistus is the synchronized version of Hermes and Thoth.  Hermes Trismegistus may have been less of a worshipped figure and more of a translation error when the Greeks were translating the Egyptian writing (hieroglyphic and Demotic).  Hermes Trismegistus became more important in later medieval times as the author of the Hermetic Texts.  

Heka

This one is also not part of Dr. Kleibl's research but one of my own creations based on her, and other, research.   I talked about the Hecate / Heka connections back when I did OMG: Greek Myths and OMG: Egyptian Myths. With the loss of Isis as the Goddess of Magic we have Heka as the new Goddess of Magic and the Underworld.  Her relationship with Isis is the same as that of Ishtar with Ereshkigal.  This also makes her the perfect goddess of witches.  

Hecate was also conflated with the Egyptian Heqet, the Goddess that was the midwife to Isis when Horus was born. Indeed the Greeks also conflated her with Ereshkigal.  In this respect she could be considered the sister to the Mother Goddess Isis. 

Others

There were plenty more, but it is difficult to know whether these were worship syncretic gods or part of the Interpretatio graeca where the Greeks often substituted names of other gods for their own gods. 

For example, the Greek Asclepius is often equated with the Egyptian Imhotep to become the patron of Healing.   

The Greek Adonis is equated with the Egyptian Osiris, the Sumerian Dumuzid, and the Phoenician Tammuz to all be equivalent Gods of Agriculture and Grain.  This is the same "God figure" of James Frazer's "The Golden Bough."  Another god that fits this is the Greek God Dionysus, who is also conflated with Adonis and Osiris.

Looking over this "pantheon" I quickly note there is no god of war.  There was Montu for the Egyptians, but the "god of war" was also served by Anhur, Ra, Sekmet, and Set at various times.  The Greeks and Romans had Ares and Mars respectively in addition to Athena-Minerva.  You see more syncretism with Ares/Mars in later periods, especially with the gods of the Celts and European peoples. 

The Greeks did know of Anhur and they called him "Onuris."  This is the god of war and battle. His primary goal is to drive out the enemies of Egypt (and Greece).  If we were so inclined we could add all the "avenger" aspects lost by Horus when he became Harpokrates. In this, he takes on the role of Protector of Isis, which of course means the protector of Egypt and the line of the Pharohs. 

Game Play Uses

It was not AD&D that sent me down the road of this Ptolemaic Egyptian Mythos, but rather Gary Gygax's other game, Dangerous Journeys.  Gary's Ægypt fascinated me when I first read about it in the 90s.   So much so that when I wanted an Egyptian-like land I used large chunks of this along with Arypt from Mystara and Erypt from the World of Greyhawk.  All of this together gave me my Ærypt. 

While it would be best to use the Egyptian gods, RAW, from the Deities & Demigods, using these has appeal, even if I have no idea how the "Greeks" got into my world.  Maybe something else altogether is in order for that.  A future post maybe.

For this "new" Pantheon I would want to relate these Gods in AD&D terms.  This is after all the primary focus of One Man's God, not as a treatise on comparative religions. I also don't want or even need, D&DG-style stat blocks.  These are not "monsters" to be fought. 

I am taking the important bits from the AD&D D&DG, namely"power" levels of the various gods, their alignment, and their worshipper's alignments.   While not stated as "Domains" (that's a 3rd Edition term) I am using them here. These are roughly the same as 2nd Ed's "Spheres."

Serapis
Greater God
Alignment: Lawful Good
Worshipper Alignment: Any Good
Domains: Law, Sun, Sky (including storms and rains), the Dead, Rulers
Symbol: Sun

Isis
Greater Goddess
Alignment: Neutral Good
Worshipper Alignment: Any Good, Women (Mysteries of Isis)
Domains: Motherhood, the Home, Childbirth, Love, Fertility
Symbol: Moon or the Roman symbol for Venus

Harpokrates
Greater God
Alignment: Lawful Good
Worshipper Alignment: Any Good
Domains: Life
Symbol: Ankh

Seth
Greater God (or Intermediate God)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Worshipper Alignment: Any Evil
Domains: Darkness, Chaos, Desolation
Symbol: Coiled Snake

Nephthys
Greater Goddess (or Intermediate God)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any
Domains: Night, Darkness, the Underworld
Symbol: Dark moon

Hermes Trismegistus
Greater God (or Intermediate God)
Alignment: Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any
Domains: Knowledge, Wisdom, Secrets
Symbol: A circle within a square within a triangle within a circle.

Heka
Lesser Goddess
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any, Witches
Domains: Magic, Witchcraft, Childbirth, Darkness
Symbol: Crescent moon

Adonis (Dionysus-Osiris)
Lesser God
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: Any
Domains: Agriculture, Grain, Wine, Life-Death-Rebirth
Symbol: Sheath of grain

Onuris
Lesser God
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Worshipper Alignment: soldiers, warriors
Domains: War
Symbol: Spear 

Asclepius-Imhotep
Demigod
Alignment: Neutral Good
Worshipper Alignment: Any, Healers
Domains: Healing
Symbol: Scalpel 

What About the Demons?

This is all fun and everything, but what about the demons of this mythology?  We have a "devil" in the form of Seth.  I would say that given Egypt's history with demons that some would still be around, but maybe in an altered form.  I think given the Greek connection that Demogorgon would be a good choice too.  Especially if I move Seth over to Lawful Evil (more devil-like).

With the influences of the Greeks and Romans, Late Period Egypt had an increase in creatures that were more related to the Greek daimon.  Demons went from creatures that guarding firey gates to creatures that plagued the Earth with troubles. Egypt at this time was also part of the larger trade routes of first Greece then the Roman Empire, so many gods, goddesses, and demons were filtered through the lens of both ancient and "modern" Egyptian religion.

Guardian Demons

Gate, or Guardian Demons, or  were the most common sort and were usually created by the Gods.  Their job was to keep mortals out of their realms.  They are demons in the sense that they are supernatural creatures that are neither mortals nor are they gods. These creatures were also described in funerary texts, their names or epithets placed on coffins to protect the dead. They were fierce creatures.  Apep and Ammit from the OMG Egyptian Myths could fit this role, but there are others with names like In-tep, Chery-benut, and Ikenty.  Ikenty was a large bird-like monster with the head of a cat.

Wanderer Demons

The other class of demons were the Earthly or wanderer demons, . These are the demons who cause problems on Earth, gave people nightmares, caused disease, and possessed humans.

I have a Part 4 of this series to do later.  I plan on incorporating some of the work of Prof. Panagiotis Kousoulis of the University of the Aegean, Greece.  Most of his work is in Greek, so I am digging around for English translations.  Part 4 takes this concept of syncretism and demons and dials it up.

But I need to do my Part 3 first.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism

• Syncretism Part 1, The Gods of Faerûn
• Syncretism Part 2, the Greco-Egyptian Gods
• Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• Syncretism Part 4, Orcus and Dispater
• Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods

One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 1, The Gods of Faerûn

This is the start of a multi-part sub-feature of One Man's God. I am going to pull in material from older Dragon Magazines when needed, though not enough to count as a "This Old Dragon."  This series will also allow me to pull in more up-to-date material for the various gods and creatures beyond what was in the  Deities and Demigods. The D&DG will be my starting point, but I am not limited to it now.

Since I have completed all the myths in the Deities and Demigods the initial goal of One Man's God is now complete.  I might, after this, look to other editions of (A)D&D, in particular, 2nd and 3rd but for now, I want to explore some other topics that came up in my OMG posts.

One of those topics is syncretism.

Syncretism is the combining of gods or beliefs into a new set of gods and/or belief systems.  This is something that happens in the real world all the time, though maybe less so now as the prevalence of monotheism is worldwide.  We do see it more modern times in the cases of religions like Vodun and Santería.

While you typically don't see syncretism in AD&D there is at least one excellent example of it. Going all the way back to Dragon #54 from October 1981, we have Ed Greenwood's Down-to-Earth Divinity.  

I am not sure if this article lead to the later developments of what the Cleric can do with their gods or not, but it was most certainly ahead of it's time.  A quick reminder, while Greenwood has been telling us about his campaign for a bit now, the Forgotten Realms, as a product, was not due till 1987.  

I covered this in an early This Old Dragon, here is what I said about it then:

Up first in real articles we have something from Ed Greenwood. So this year (2017) I have been spending some time expanding my knowledge of the Forgotten Realms. This article is one of the earliest articles on the Realms I know of. Down-to-earth Divinity discusses how Ed has put together his Pantheon of Gods. You can easily see how this evolved into the gods of the Realms. I found it interesting that he includes the elemental gods from the Melnibonéan mythos. There are a lot of "reskinned" Deities and Demigods gods here too (which is the point of the article). I liked that Ed specifically mentions that witches worship Selûne. The article is long and seriously good.

I feel I undersold how good this article is for my purposes. So not only can use this as a One Man's God entry in the pure sense it is also the perfect place to discuss syncretism.  The insight to how the Realms gods took shape is fascinating, the implications of what is going here are much more interesting.

For the sake of today's discussion, let us just focus on the Faerûnian Pantheon as a whole.  While they have evolved much since this article (and a further point in my case here). For modern examples, I will refer to the Faerûnian pantheon at the Forgotten Realms wiki.  

Faerûnian Gods

In this article, Greenwood details how he created the Gods of Faerûn.  Many of these gods are "reskinned" versions of Earth gods.  While there is a very practical game-design reason for this there is also an implied in-universe explanation; clerics of those gods came to Toril and brought their gods with them.  We see this in books, like Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" and we see it later in the Realms itself with the Mulhorandi pantheon, which are the Egyptian Gods, not even changed all that much. 

For his Gods, Greenwood choose to stick pretty close to the first printing of the Deities and Demigods.  Again there are very practical reasons for this.  Here is a breakdown of the "immigrant" gods to Faerûn.

Faerûn	D&DG	Pantheon	Notes
Azuth	Aarth	Nehwon	Direct port, concept-wise
Bane	Druaga	Babylonian	Human form
Chauntea	Demeter	Greek	Direct port
Gond	Hephaestus	Greek	Direct port
Ilmater	Issek of the Jug	Nehwon	Some aspects
Loviatar	Loviatar	Finnish	Direct port
Mask	Hermes	Greek	No Justice domain
Mielikki	Mielikki	Finnish	Direct port
Milil	Bragi	Norse	Changed
Oghma	Oghma	Celtic	Direct port
Silvanus	Silvanus	Celtic	Direct port
Sune	Aphrodite	Greek	Direct port
Talona	Kipuytto	Finnish	Direct port
Talos	Storm Gods	Many	Combined aspects of other gods
Torm	St. Cuthbert	Greyhawk	Concept only
Tyche / Tymora	Tyche	Greek	Direct port
Tyr	Tyr	Norse	Direct port
Elemental Lords	Elemental Lords	Melnibonéan	Direct port
Cults of the Beast	Beast Lords	Melnibonéan+	many sources

This is not to imply that all Gods in Faerûn are imports.  Far from it! Many of the gods discussed in the article are different enough from their sources to be considered new gods.  Which is exactly what syncretism does.  There are also plenty of brand new gods.  For example, Mystra is nothing at all like Hecate.

What About Demons and Other Gods?

One Man's God is supposed to be about gods and demons right?  Certainly, the demons of the Monster Manual ARE the demons of Faerûn.  We know that Orcus has had a lot plots and schemes in the Realms since the very start.  And in the opposite direction, One Man's Demon is another's God, Asmodeus went from the Arch Duke of the devils to a God of Evil.  The details of his rise and fall have been dealt with in many books, but the best ones for my money come from the Brimstone Angels series by Erin Evans.

Evans also shows how imported gods can work.  The Pantheon of the Untheric Gods, which were the Babylonian Gods, were re-adopted by the Abeir Dragonborn living in Tymanther. In her book "The Devil You Know" Evans shows Untheric/Babylonian gods first as human-like then as Dragonborn-like as more of the Dragonborn living in Djerad Thymar came to believe in them, in particular the God Enlil.  Is it possible then that Bane IS Druaga, just evolved through the ages that his form has changed?  Isn't that also syncretism?

Nothing Like the Sun...

I have been going over this article for a very long time. There is quite a lot here to tease out and use if you are willing to take the time.  A good example of this comes from a tiny tidbit of information found in the paragraph for Selûne, then just Selune.  We are told that Selune is "revered by witches (and a few may worship her)."  Later on, in the Deity/Character Relationships table, we are told that the witches used are the ones from Dragon Magazine #43.

Reading through the various works on the Moon Goddesses, Selûne and Shar, and the Elven Sehanine Moonbow, there is a lot of back and forth on who is an aspect of who and what not.   This all lead me to a bit of syncretism of my own to combine all three goddesses into one Goddess of the Moon with three aspects.  I detailed this years ago in my "Chanel Divinity" article Nothing Like the Sun.  Each goddess represents the aspects of the triple Goddess; Maiden, Mother, and Crone or Sehanine, Selûne and Shar respectively.  Here they are more than just the Goddesses of the Moon but the Goddess of Witchcraft as well.   The waxing crescent is Sehanine and her "moonbow."  The full moon is the Mother Selûne in her full glory.  The waning crescent is Shar and her sickles to reap the souls of the dead.  But like their Goddess they are reborn as the Maiden once more.

Realms diehards might ask how can these Goddess exist?  Well, I also ask why does Zeus-Serapis exist when, supposedly, Zeus, Serapis, and  Osiris also still exist?  I like my Gods and Goddesses to be mysterious and strange and maybe a little contradictory.

For a little under 9 pages of text, Ed Greenwood really delivered here.  So much so that in truth this blog post was started months back.  I wanted to go back and reread posts I had made about this, posts I had made influenced by this, and more Forgotten Realms information.    In truth, I could go on much longer about this topic just in the Realms themselves, the world is much more dynamic that I had given it credit for, but I am going to stay on topic here and move on to other worlds and other gods.

So. Thank You, Ed Greenwood. This is quite a quality bit of work.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism

• Syncretism Part 1, The Gods of Faerûn
• Syncretism Part 2, the Greco-Egyptian Gods
• Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• Syncretism Part 4, Orcus and Dispater
• Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods