"Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Asmodeus the fallen? I thought not, it's not a story your gods would tell you. It's a myth of creation. Asmodeus once known as Ahriman was an upholder of order, so knowledgeable and so powerful he could influence the chaotic void to create law He had such a knowledge of law that he could even keep at bay the demon hordes. Unfortunately he couldn't convince the gods to decide upon the center of creation and without their uplifting wings he fell into the lowest pits of the hells. Ironic he could uphold the law, but not himself"
Always remember that Asmodeus is also called the Lord of Lies, so all the stories, myths and legends surrounding Asmodeus are probably all lies. Even what I just wrote here is mostlikely a lie. The only certainty we have about Asmodeus is that we don't truly know who he is, but even that is probably a lie...... Is he the embodiment of this paradox: I always lie? (If this statement is a lie, then I don't always lie and tell the truth sometimes, but if the statement is true, the statement is self defeatiing...)
Mr Allen - I’m a huge fan of Planar Lore and this was a concise yet wonderfully thorough treatment of The Nine Hells. Well done. Asmodeus was listed in the 1e AD&D Monster Manual as the Ruler of Hell. Additional treatments of the hierarchy of Hell was provided in Dragon Magazine #76 from August ‘83.
The satanic panic was really annoying...our group had to change gaming locations a half dozen times because of some sort of outrage and crazy accusations of devil worship and whatnot. As a teenager back then, it always struck me as weird that the "adults" couldn't see it was all made up. It still seems weird. Good content, btw. Even after decades of playing and DMing, it was interesting and gave me ideas for my current infernally influenced campaign. Thanks!
I still don’t know how my Dungeon Masters Guide survived the “purge of 1984” by my stepmother after I left home for college. I’d love to see the look on her face if she ever saw my copy of the Book of Vile Darkness.
The fact that adults could be so worried about kids really believing in such obviously fictional made up stuff has ever since caused me seriously cynicism about the legit level of belief of these Christian adults... Clearly some part of them was deliberately ignoring their instincts telling them they were believing bullshit, which is why they could be so worried and project onto kids playing an imagination game
This is sick! I have been scouring the internet for books on the lore of the hells and this video was a really great summary of all the information I was hoping to gain. Awesome job!!
Glad you enjoyed it! Though to be honest when I made this video I was still in the mindset of focusing almost entirely on 2nd edition. So there's definitely stuff I left out from future editions, like from _Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells._
Hey Wade 🙏 I'm back behind the DM's screen working on a 5e homebrew, blending canon with the idea that Garden in Avernus is a planar convergence with a realm of Mount Celestia, and I've been really inspired by your videos. Thank you very much!
My reconciliation of viewing other infinite layers (a quirk not unique to Baator) depends on the plane in question, but can be best described as “weather and planet gazing”. To a mortal, the description should feel uncanny, but the natives talk about it the way we talk about meteor showers, eclipses, and constellations. For some layers, the rest appear almost peacefully in the night sky, for others like rifts and tears in reality, and for other like an overlaid optical illusion, or shimmering like the aurora borealis. Embracing the weirdness and treating it as totes ordinary does a lot to let you keep each plane’s phenomenon feel right
I loved this video so much. The lore, rules, and history are layed out nearly perfectly and concisely. The only thing I wish was talked about more was Malbolge and what happened to Malagard when Glasya took it over. The whole layer is covered in a bloated and fat Malagard's remains after she imploded. Her bones, hair, skin, blood, etc covers the cliffs and Glasya makes her home out of her huge skull. Other inhabitants carve out dwellings from her bones and skin and stuff. Also, a lot of cool art and new 5e lore for all of the Hells was included in Chains of Asmodeus and from the info provided from this video, I assume you aren't aware or chose to omit what was in that book. Not saying that as a bad thing necessarily since this is mostly following 2nd edition by default but I would have really loved the comprehensiveness of the lore of this video to go from 95% to 100%. Either way, superb video!!
I've got four other ones. I only correct you in case you missed them and would like to watch them. There's the guide to the outer planes, guide to the inner planes, the factions of sigil and their philosophies, and the sects of the outer planes.
Love your videos on the planes. They are the only ones you make that interest me but damn they are good ❤️ Though I think you mixed up the layer of Malbulge with the plane of Gehenna.
Thanks! Malbolge and Gehenna do have some similarities, but I was taking most of what I said right out of the Planes of Law: Baator book. And many things were changed about Malbolge in later editions of D&D, so that might be contributing to the seeming mixup as well.
That's a good idea. I haven't really done any non-Planescape stuff yet like that, but I should try it out. To be honest covering Faerun lore seems a little daunting because there's like 300 books on it. The Outer Planes have comparatively less source material to read through.
@WadeAllen001 I totally get that. If you wanted to cover all lore tie-ins, across all source material, for a given topic, that would seem daunting indeed. But, it's probably okay to miss some niche interactions or historical events here or there. No pressure, of course - cover what you're comfortable covering. I'm sure you'd do it justice, though; particularly if you chose a narrowed scope to begin with.
It's fitting. The Bbeg of the campaign I've been running is a cross of Vandal Savage, and Bezos. He's a long lived hobgoblin general who retired and started a shipping empire in a Spartan-esque society.
They do! I've gone over it in my Guide to the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia video. But basically it's archons = lawful good, guardinals = neutral good, eladrin = chaotic good, aasimon = any good.
Entertaining and informative. Its important to establish that the Kytin in Memnos are actually not beholden to Mammon, and have their iwn Independent territory. Cenobites...
Dude. Malagard is her attempt to acheive Godhood swelled up and burst. Malbolge is a fetis wasteland of exploded hag guts. Her fingers became gigantic towers. Her ribs split and became the 2 mountain ranges that encircle the plane. Her skull swelled to enoumous Godlike portions and is the capitol of the plane and the palace where Glasya resides
I have observed that you often bounce back and forth between editions and make allusions that all the lore is meant to be static, like during the Lord of the First explanation, but in fact there is a timeline of events that you are missing in your explanations. Zariel was the Lord of the First, then Bel got promoted to Lord of the First and Zariel his advisor, later on Bel lost favor with Asmodeus and he reinstalled Zariel as Lord of the First. All of those things happened in the lore. It's not the books or editions being contradictory, rather they happened at different eras. Before Zariel, Tiamat ruled the First layer. There's enough conjecture that we can assume even Graz'zt the Demon Lord, was once Lord of the First before he was corrupted by Chaos while on his mission in the Abyss, and after conquering three layers of the Abyss decided to stay to become a Demon Prince rather than go back to the Nine Hells hierarchy. In official D&D books it is stated Graz'zt was once an Archduke of Hell. Also stated: Asmodeus tasked Graz'zt with leading an army into the Abyss to retrieve a fragment of the heart of the Abyss, the shard of ultimate evil. Archdukes of Avernus typically are the ones who rule over the Dark Eight and the Devil army who fight in the Blood War. It's reasonable to assume that Graz'zt used to be Lord of the First. Probably even before Tiamat ruled the layer. In the lore Tiamat did not care for rulership of Avernus or being part of the Archdukes' plotting and politicking. So she gave up the title as Lord of the First, wanting to focus more of her energy on the Material Plane.
I will definitely grant that I didn't go into later edition stuff very much at all in this video and mostly talked about the Lords of the Nine as they exist in 2nd edition, but the differences in each edition often are (but not always) contradictions that are later smoothed out (or an attempt is made at smoothing them out) and retconned into a cohesive timeline. 4th edition provides lore about Graz'zt originally being a devil that was tasked with re-finding the Shard of Evil for Asmodeus (and 5th edition also mentions Graz'zt previously being an archduke), but 2nd edition and 3rd edition both have it that Graz'zt is the child of Pale Night, born a demon and not a devil. To accept the edition-spanning timeline is to retcon away the contradictions such as these, but I prefer in these cases to just view each edition as its own thing.
30:05 My take on the limbo vs heresy distinction is that: Limbo is for souls that were virtuous but never had the opportunity to learn the gospel and enter the holy covenant with Christ. Christianity has this thing called "The Original Sin", a vague idea that a seed of evil lives within us thanks to the first sin committed on The Garden of Eden and that can only be purged through Jesus' sacrifice. Since the orthodox belief is that one can only enter paradise while completely and utterly free of sin, being a genuinely good person isn't enough, you must be a baptized and faithful Christian to enter heaven (A foul, manipulative tactic to force others to join their cult out of fear of damnation) Heresy on the other hand is reserved for those that DID learn of the gospel of the holy church, but had the audacity to disagree and have their own opinions. Anyone that believes in anything that deviates from the teachings of the orthodoxy is damned to suffer even more than those chilling up in the first circle. It is a common trait of cults to persecute and condemn those that were once part of it but dared to leave. There's also a third even worse level of punishment in Violence, the Seventh Circle. It is divided into three parts and the third part of ring 7 is for the sin of Blasphemy, for those who not only dared turn their back to the gospel, but also spoke out against it and God himself. Critics get to burn in blistering sand and under a constant rain of fire.
I was thinking the planes spiral along a cone, so looking up you can see the planes coming down the sides. Meaning the lower you go the more you see looking up into the lighter layers
Yeah it is described in a few places like that, where you get a more and more complete view of the plane the lower you go. But then if you think about that how does that work? Because if the layer above you is a larger slice of the cone, then it would take up all of the sky, so how would you see the layers further above the one directly above you? And wouldn't you just see the underside of the layers anyway? Of course I guess the answer is just that shit don't make sense in the Outer Planes.
26:30 So here's why I struggle so much to get into D&D lore. Before coming to this video, I just watched another video about the story of Zariel. In there, it said that at the beginning, there was chaos, and then the gods of law formed and fought chaos. So, in the alignment thing, there was only law and chaos as opposites. Also, there were angels, among which Asmodeus was the best fighter. Then Asmodeus and the bois turned evil and signed a contract with the law gods to make him his own plane, Baator, where he could fight chaos and torture the unlawful mortals without the other angels complaining. Then the gods realised they got screwed over by that contract and tuned Asmodeus in a Devil and yeeted his ass into nessus. And this is when Evil and Good appeared on the alignment. The devils were lawful evil, angels lawful good and demons lawful chaotic. Now, here you come and tell me about good and bad serpents, Asmodeus being the bad one, and I have to completely throw out the window all I learned in the previous video. It's a total effin mess
Yeah there's contradicting lore in each edition of D&D (and sometimes even within one edition). Really it's up to the DM to use which one they like best, or to use them all as stories without telling the players outright which one is the real story. The lore you just described sounds more like the lore of 5e as told in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. The reason I used the twin serpents story is because that's the one given in second edition of D&D that Planescape existed in (up until very recently because they've now published a 5e Planescape campaign setting set).
Page 165 of _On Hallowed Ground._ It wouldn't be the first time that D&D sources contradict each other, though generally speaking I tend to view rule/supplement/adventure/setting books as more canonical than novels.
I feel like it may have help clarified in the beginning. How they are corrupted soldiers, the whole good vs evil war going into the order vs chaos that actually led to it. But I get that is a rabbit hole.
Glad you mentioned that. A LOT of stuff in the DnD texts is written in a way that suggests a non English speaker decided upon the words. And no, I don't consider ye olden tyme Englesh to be English.
12:26 My take on this is math. Like how a imaginary number can be tied to a physical number through a equation. Actually, think of it like Minecraft. You take a portal to the nether, go somewhere and then take another portal out and it's much further away. Both dimensions might be infinite, but you could argue that they're different sizes even if both are infinite. Does that make sense to you guys?
There are different intensities of infinity so you don't need to worry about the math in that regard. If there are twice as many infinite demons as devils than that just means in a given battle there will likely be twice as many demons compared to devils
I love cuirass on your list of awkward fantasy words. Yup I know that word for armor from a video game. I also recently heard a PhD medievalist pronounce it "queer ass".
Bg3 comment; Raphaels lord/leige is mephistopheles. He says that in one of the endings, where he notes that even his "father mephistopheles...". Does that mean that Raphael probably are a Duke/Arch-Devil under his father Mephistopheles? Or... is he one of the Damned 8 or... is he a Combion... most people seam to think he is a Cambion... but it doesn't fit in my opinion... ayway.... any thoughts people?
Gentleman cutter, I'm really enjoying this series. Brings back fond memories of a Sensate Githzerai I once played. I hope you might be inspired to make a more in depth video about all the planes and attract some subs for your effort. I have certainly shared this playlist with my group. If I had one criticism it is your pronunciation of Sigil. I've always said /ˈsɪdʒɪl/ (soft g). I did look this up and the IPA I quote is what Wikipedia thinks is how one pronounces sigil, in context of magical runes. Still it's not the end of the world and I have learned quite a lot from these videos, so feel free to carry on and ignore my griping. 😅
Glad you've been enjoying my videos! I pronounce sigil with a soft g when referring to magical runes, as Wikipedia correctly states it should be pronounced. But Sigil the city is not pronounced like sigil the word.
Mechanus is a cool one, and I will definitely do it at some point. Maybe the next video? I don't know. Right now I've got one vote for the Abyss, one vote for Mount Celestia, one vote for The Gray Waste, and now one vote for Mechanus.
Actually ininities can be different sizes! Some are infinitely bigger than others. Several times over. Don't think about it too much though. Or at all.
@@WadeAllen001 - No. They were there from the beginning, not promoted from petitioners. Such a thing would only be possible, if a petitioner were to reach the uppermost layer of the Heavens, but that is only a theory.
@@fleetcenturion there's a poster in the planes of law book that shows that trumpet and tome archons get promoted into aasimon if they perform their duties well.
I think the problem with sigil is that the various planes are infinite in size and then there are an infinite number of material planes but sigil and the outlands are basically finite in size
The Outlands is also an infinite plane. It has a finite boundary but the area contained within that boundary is infinite. Basically the distance between any two places in the Outlands is not constant. Distances are also not constant in Sigil and the city does not have a fixed size, but changes according to the Lady of Pain's whims.
@@WadeAllen001 I see. I had to watch a few more videos. The Plane of Concordant Opposition is its other name. It is deceptive to think about the gate cities at the edges giving it a finite dimension - but no stranger than the other planes. Sigil is a kind of inverse of a prime material plane
Love your Planescape videos. As a DM, I’ve recommended your videos to my players so they’d have some idea of the planes and factions before we start playing. I would love to use Garden in my game at some point. I also like the lore between Bel and Zariel. In my last session, I had Bel hide inside a PC’s body (when they visited Avernus) and revealed himself when the players arrived on Celestia, citing that was the way he could get into Lunia and survive the holy water bath. He got the idea from Zariel, whom infiltrated Baator so Bel decided to infiltrate Celestia.
The origin story of Asmodeus being the cosmic serpent god Ahriman is from 2e (Guide to Hell). You're right though that according to other lore he wasn't a god until the Spellplague.
2:30 finaly, someone who understands that Evil and Good are only defined as Selfidh and Selfless, being Evil dosen't mean you can't be moral. Edit: feel the same about the Law/chaos part but this point is more understod by players
Unfortunately we might not be completely on the same page. Being evil is defined as selfishness yes, which means that evil creatures don't necessary kill people or enjoy killing people, but how could an evil creature still be moral? How can one not care about others and be a good person? (Keeping in mind of course, that the more you don't care about other people the more you don't mind if they get harmed in the process of you getting what you want)
@@WadeAllen001 i'm thinking of it as that you can practice moral or ethical ideas for selfish reasons. like Pacifism, you might not care about others getting hurt but you might care about getting blood on your own hands and becoming "impure"
28:38 This doesn't really make any sense to me. Why would someone who doesn't believe in an afterlife go specifically to the lowest layer of the plane of Lawful Evil, regardless of who they were in life?
😂 I always laugh when I think back to the Satanic panic. Imagine thinking something is a dark recruiting tool to fiannly bring the anti christ apocalypse and really it's just 5 nerds in a basement eating snacks making d**k jokes and pretending to blow stuff up
Note: In the Forgotten Realms setting Asmodious doesn't get his non-believer souls because they get shoved into the soul wall to suffer where they slowly fade away the more they give up on existing. The deities in Forgotten Realms can be real jerks.
So are the gods residing within the layers weaker than the archdevils? I thought gods were supposed to be more powerful than archdevils - who are more like demigods. Why don't they just take the layer over?
The archdevils are certainly supposed to be less powerful than gods. But why don't the gods take over the layers? That's a good question. The short answer is I have no idea, and I'm not sure D&D itself has thought that through too much either. But I'll tell you my thoughts and the possible answers I've come up with. Honestly, in my mind the lords of the nine (and demon lords and celestial hebdomad, etc) are god-tier in power, if not outright gods. I mean, plenty of people do worship each of the lords of the nine, so why wouldn't they be gods? So that's one answer you could go with, they either are gods or are god-tier in power. Another answer is that perhaps the gods aren't powerful enough to do that. A lot of gods aren't that powerful in D&D anyway. Sure they're certainly more powerful than mortals, but Ao's the only one who seems deserving of the title of god to me. So perhaps a god could kill a lord of the nine in one on one combat, but each lord of the nine has essentially an infinite army of devils at their command. I would say that the gods are only as powerful as the amount of worshippers they have, and their realms are the manifestation of that power. So perhaps in theory a god could take over a whole layer, but that would require expanding their realm throughout the whole layer by gaining more worshippers. Alternatively, they could leave their realm and try to take over the layer by force, but then what's to stop another god or powerful entity from just doing the same thing and wresting control from them. Perhaps gods prefer to stay in their realms because it's the only place where they have full control. And since realms operate on different rules and look entirely different to the layers they're in, perhaps from a god's perspective their realm isn't *in* the layer at all, but rather just next to it, so they don't feel like they're under the control of a being less powerful than them (because really, they're not. Mammon has no control over the gods that reside in Minauros for example. Though Tiamat is or was under the control of Asmodeus, but Asmodeus is at least a greater god). Another answer lies in the fabled and non-canonical Ordial plane. Where the Astral Plane is the plane of thought, and the Ethereal Plane is the plane of unformed matter, the Ordial Plane is the plane of proof, and of spirit. It is where the true essences of the gods reside. So going with that idea, perhaps the realms these gods keep in the Outer Planes are just intended as permanent homes for the mortals that provided them their godhood, but the gods themselves actually live in the Ordial, and so feel little to no desire to expand their domains in the Outer Planes.
Maybe. Clearly though it must be lawful evil for it to stay in Baator. Its beatific nature is just a deception to lure people in and consume them. Slightly related, 5e has it that Baator used to be a beautiful place, but was corrupted by the devils once Asmodeus took control. And he kept Avernus beautiful so that essentially the whole layer functioned like Garden, as a trap to lure people into the Hells. But then Avernus turned into a barren hellscape due to Zariel's warmongering and invasions of demons in the Blood War. Perhaps I should've covered this in the video, but I was trying to focus mainly on original Planescape rather than 5e changes. But maybe for future videos I'll include more 5e stuff.
I like that you use mostly 2e Lore. I'm currently reading up on Planescape myself, as I find it very interesting and want to make a campaign for it. Your videos help me a lot.
@@WadeAllen001 There is the old joke about Bill Gates making a deal with the Devil so that Windows becomes a success. He asks the Devil for a glimpse of Hell. The Devil takes him to a beautiful location where everyone is enjoying themselves and is happy. Gates signs the contract. Decades later he dies, and finds himself in a lake of fire. He demands to know what happened to the place he was shown. The Devil tells him that what he saw was a Beta version of Hell. What he is in is the release version of Hell.
"Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Asmodeus the fallen? I thought not, it's not a story your gods would tell you. It's a myth of creation.
Asmodeus once known as Ahriman was an upholder of order, so knowledgeable and so powerful he could influence the chaotic void to create law
He had such a knowledge of law that he could even keep at bay the demon hordes. Unfortunately he couldn't convince the gods to decide upon the center of creation and without their uplifting wings he fell into the lowest pits of the hells.
Ironic he could uphold the law, but not himself"
Always remember that Asmodeus is also called the Lord of Lies, so all the stories, myths and legends surrounding Asmodeus are probably all lies. Even what I just wrote here is mostlikely a lie. The only certainty we have about Asmodeus is that we don't truly know who he is, but even that is probably a lie...... Is he the embodiment of this paradox: I always lie? (If this statement is a lie, then I don't always lie and tell the truth sometimes, but if the statement is true, the statement is self defeatiing...)
@@TheH8redd are you telling me the archdevil himself would... LIE??!!😵🥴🤯
@@derpasaurus155How can a paradox LIE? Explain that to me. ( Refering to the I always lie paradox).
Misinformation and Disinformation...😅
Darth Plaguis loves this version of the story...
Holy crap, one hour of Planescape content. Impressive, Wade 🎉👏
Why is it comforting to listen to videos about the structure of Hell? Thanks for your hard work in compiling and performing.
Great video. The abyss is the most obvious next choice.
Okay I've got one vote for Mount Celestia and one vote for the Abyss.
@@WadeAllen001This is the only request you'll receive for the Gray Wastes of Hades, so I'll leave it right here.
@@WadeAllen001 Adding a Mechanus vote into the mix, I actually have the least amount of notes about it lol
Mr Allen - I’m a huge fan of Planar Lore and this was a concise yet wonderfully thorough treatment of The Nine Hells. Well done.
Asmodeus was listed in the 1e AD&D Monster Manual as the Ruler of Hell. Additional treatments of the hierarchy of Hell was provided in Dragon Magazine #76 from August ‘83.
Love me a long form lore video. Currently in a plane hopping DnD game so this info is valuable to not let my party TPK
The satanic panic was really annoying...our group had to change gaming locations a half dozen times because of some sort of outrage and crazy accusations of devil worship and whatnot. As a teenager back then, it always struck me as weird that the "adults" couldn't see it was all made up. It still seems weird. Good content, btw. Even after decades of playing and DMing, it was interesting and gave me ideas for my current infernally influenced campaign. Thanks!
I still don’t know how my Dungeon Masters Guide survived the “purge of 1984” by my stepmother after I left home for college. I’d love to see the look on her face if she ever saw my copy of the Book of Vile Darkness.
You all gettin' Woke now?😅
What are you even on about@@truthjustice6454
The fact that adults could be so worried about kids really believing in such obviously fictional made up stuff has ever since caused me seriously cynicism about the legit level of belief of these Christian adults... Clearly some part of them was deliberately ignoring their instincts telling them they were believing bullshit, which is why they could be so worried and project onto kids playing an imagination game
Now we have people calling orcs racist and goblins antisemitic
Are we much better today?
This is sick! I have been scouring the internet for books on the lore of the hells and this video was a really great summary of all the information I was hoping to gain. Awesome job!!
Glad you enjoyed it! Though to be honest when I made this video I was still in the mindset of focusing almost entirely on 2nd edition. So there's definitely stuff I left out from future editions, like from _Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells._
First time seeing your channel, I'm only seven minutes in and already subscribed.
Awesome work! Super stocked to watch more of your dnd stuff.
Your planescape videos are really good! Can't wait to see some more
Thanks!
This was a much better overview than most videos i have seen on the planes. I'd definitely watch more even if im not a Forgotten Realms fan.
Hey Wade 🙏 I'm back behind the DM's screen working on a 5e homebrew, blending canon with the idea that Garden in Avernus is a planar convergence with a realm of Mount Celestia, and I've been really inspired by your videos. Thank you very much!
Just found this video in recommendation, subbed after hearing yer narration. Looking forward to more lore videos, love it!
Great explanation of evil using the corporate analogy.
Thank you for this incredible video, when the episodes on The Abyss and Hades come out I will die happy
Hell yea! Perfect timing. Your videos are becoming my primary source for Planescape information. Heres to many more.
Nice work Wade. Takes a lot of research and time to put this all together.
damn this is a great video, well explained, good pacing and flow, thank you for making this
This is such a comprehensive video. Thank you so much!!!
Long form D&D lore that is well narrated? Automatic sub! 😁 Thank you.
Hell yesssss hype
I love the Planescape/Great Wheel Cosmology vids, so cool to hear all about it
Amazing videos, loved your take on everything. Hoping to see a video on The Abyss soon!
3:50-4:10 I just can't with you roasting a certain billionaire, I just fell out 😂😂😂
My reconciliation of viewing other infinite layers (a quirk not unique to Baator) depends on the plane in question, but can be best described as “weather and planet gazing”. To a mortal, the description should feel uncanny, but the natives talk about it the way we talk about meteor showers, eclipses, and constellations. For some layers, the rest appear almost peacefully in the night sky, for others like rifts and tears in reality, and for other like an overlaid optical illusion, or shimmering like the aurora borealis. Embracing the weirdness and treating it as totes ordinary does a lot to let you keep each plane’s phenomenon feel right
Beautiful work man, keep it up! 💪🏽💪🏽
Hell yeah! Running a Planescape game and your videos have been essential
Fantastic video bro. Absolutely brilliant sir!👏👏👏
Love to see your take on Carceri.
I loved this video so much. The lore, rules, and history are layed out nearly perfectly and concisely. The only thing I wish was talked about more was Malbolge and what happened to Malagard when Glasya took it over. The whole layer is covered in a bloated and fat Malagard's remains after she imploded. Her bones, hair, skin, blood, etc covers the cliffs and Glasya makes her home out of her huge skull. Other inhabitants carve out dwellings from her bones and skin and stuff. Also, a lot of cool art and new 5e lore for all of the Hells was included in Chains of Asmodeus and from the info provided from this video, I assume you aren't aware or chose to omit what was in that book. Not saying that as a bad thing necessarily since this is mostly following 2nd edition by default but I would have really loved the comprehensiveness of the lore of this video to go from 95% to 100%. Either way, superb video!!
Thanks for the kind words! I've gotten feedback from a few people that I should include more lore from later editions, so I've started doing that.
Lve these long form vids, keep on keeping on 😎🍻🤘
Great God's Below.... I'm loving this episode. Thanks for your hard work brother.
Loved your outer planes video, and this one was awesome too 😊 my personal favorite outer realm is elysium!
God, the absolute irony of the ad break I got going into the Maladomini section. I feel like Baelzabul just tried to strike a bargain.
Well done. And I can't give you what doesn't exist. I'll see you in Cania!
55:50 I like your note on pronouncing Malbolge. Think of the sound in the makeup/color rogue (but the thief) 😆
Great video, really.
Good call on the “bay-eh-tor” solution, I think that’s the best choice. I think all of these pronunciations should be based on which one sounds best
oh hell yeah, love your other two planescape videos
I've got four other ones. I only correct you in case you missed them and would like to watch them. There's the guide to the outer planes, guide to the inner planes, the factions of sigil and their philosophies, and the sects of the outer planes.
@@WadeAllen001 I haven’t seen those yet. Sounds sick, will check them out. Thanks!
Love your videos on the planes. They are the only ones you make that interest me but damn they are good ❤️
Though I think you mixed up the layer of Malbulge with the plane of Gehenna.
Thanks!
Malbolge and Gehenna do have some similarities, but I was taking most of what I said right out of the Planes of Law: Baator book. And many things were changed about Malbolge in later editions of D&D, so that might be contributing to the seeming mixup as well.
I love your lore content.
Any chance we could get an underdark video? Or specific cities, like Menzoberranzan?
That's a good idea. I haven't really done any non-Planescape stuff yet like that, but I should try it out. To be honest covering Faerun lore seems a little daunting because there's like 300 books on it. The Outer Planes have comparatively less source material to read through.
@WadeAllen001 I totally get that. If you wanted to cover all lore tie-ins, across all source material, for a given topic, that would seem daunting indeed. But, it's probably okay to miss some niche interactions or historical events here or there.
No pressure, of course - cover what you're comfortable covering. I'm sure you'd do it justice, though; particularly if you chose a narrowed scope to begin with.
Thanks for the video! Very well done 👍🏻
Very nice collage and presentation
Thanks!
I love your example of Jeff Bezos as a lawful evil character
All billionaires are lawful evil
It’s been a favorite of mine.
My preferred examples are Robert Moses and Henry Kissinger.
It's fitting. The Bbeg of the campaign I've been running is a cross of Vandal Savage, and Bezos. He's a long lived hobgoblin general who retired and started a shipping empire in a Spartan-esque society.
I remember an amoral billionaire reference, not anyone specific. Time stamp?
Great vid
One question.. what is the breakdown for the celestials... Or don't they have a breakdown like fiends?
They do! I've gone over it in my Guide to the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia video. But basically it's archons = lawful good, guardinals = neutral good, eladrin = chaotic good, aasimon = any good.
it just amazing piece of work, thank you Wade!
though...please return my soul...
It's mine now.
Thank you so much! You are appreciated🙏🏼
I will master the hells. I am The Master Baator
Finally, some one bringing proof of the true pronunciation.
Entertaining and informative.
Its important to establish that the Kytin in Memnos are actually not beholden to Mammon, and have their iwn Independent territory.
Cenobites...
Dude. Malagard is her attempt to acheive Godhood swelled up and burst. Malbolge is a fetis wasteland of exploded hag guts. Her fingers became gigantic towers. Her ribs split and became the 2 mountain ranges that encircle the plane. Her skull swelled to enoumous Godlike portions and is the capitol of the plane and the palace where Glasya resides
Yeah that's some cool lore. Do you think I should include more lore from later editions in these videos?
@@WadeAllen001 I think it would be a very interesting sidenote
i really like the tenar'ri distinction from the oberyth and the other one, in my game baatezu will refer exclusively to petitioners also
49:27 Well, that makes Karlach's "this had better be sexy or violent" comment into new persepective.
This is amazing thank you!
This was a great video, definitely make some more dnd content!
Working on it!
@@WadeAllen001 I can’t wait for your abyss video!
@@Hugeandhandsomeman maybe I'll do that after the next one then, but I'm already pretty far into work on Mount Celestia.
@@WadeAllen001 understandable, can’t wait if you do end up making it🙏🏻
Its worth mentioning that the larvae in 5e are basically currency and barely considered sentient.
Who would voluntarily become a resident of Dis?
Vogon - "My Identity papers, Visa, letter of introduction and public enquiry findings, in triplicate."
Subscribed. I want more.
Let's be honest though, the Satanic Panic creating the Tenari allowed for some of the best DnD deep lore with Tharizdun and the Obiryth.
I have observed that you often bounce back and forth between editions and make allusions that all the lore is meant to be static, like during the Lord of the First explanation, but in fact there is a timeline of events that you are missing in your explanations. Zariel was the Lord of the First, then Bel got promoted to Lord of the First and Zariel his advisor, later on Bel lost favor with Asmodeus and he reinstalled Zariel as Lord of the First. All of those things happened in the lore. It's not the books or editions being contradictory, rather they happened at different eras.
Before Zariel, Tiamat ruled the First layer. There's enough conjecture that we can assume even Graz'zt the Demon Lord, was once Lord of the First before he was corrupted by Chaos while on his mission in the Abyss, and after conquering three layers of the Abyss decided to stay to become a Demon Prince rather than go back to the Nine Hells hierarchy.
In official D&D books it is stated Graz'zt was once an Archduke of Hell. Also stated: Asmodeus tasked Graz'zt with leading an army into the Abyss to retrieve a fragment of the heart of the Abyss, the shard of ultimate evil.
Archdukes of Avernus typically are the ones who rule over the Dark Eight and the Devil army who fight in the Blood War. It's reasonable to assume that Graz'zt used to be Lord of the First. Probably even before Tiamat ruled the layer. In the lore Tiamat did not care for rulership of Avernus or being part of the Archdukes' plotting and politicking. So she gave up the title as Lord of the First, wanting to focus more of her energy on the Material Plane.
I will definitely grant that I didn't go into later edition stuff very much at all in this video and mostly talked about the Lords of the Nine as they exist in 2nd edition, but the differences in each edition often are (but not always) contradictions that are later smoothed out (or an attempt is made at smoothing them out) and retconned into a cohesive timeline. 4th edition provides lore about Graz'zt originally being a devil that was tasked with re-finding the Shard of Evil for Asmodeus (and 5th edition also mentions Graz'zt previously being an archduke), but 2nd edition and 3rd edition both have it that Graz'zt is the child of Pale Night, born a demon and not a devil. To accept the edition-spanning timeline is to retcon away the contradictions such as these, but I prefer in these cases to just view each edition as its own thing.
30:05 My take on the limbo vs heresy distinction is that:
Limbo is for souls that were virtuous but never had the opportunity to learn the gospel and enter the holy covenant with Christ. Christianity has this thing called "The Original Sin", a vague idea that a seed of evil lives within us thanks to the first sin committed on The Garden of Eden and that can only be purged through Jesus' sacrifice. Since the orthodox belief is that one can only enter paradise while completely and utterly free of sin, being a genuinely good person isn't enough, you must be a baptized and faithful Christian to enter heaven (A foul, manipulative tactic to force others to join their cult out of fear of damnation)
Heresy on the other hand is reserved for those that DID learn of the gospel of the holy church, but had the audacity to disagree and have their own opinions. Anyone that believes in anything that deviates from the teachings of the orthodoxy is damned to suffer even more than those chilling up in the first circle. It is a common trait of cults to persecute and condemn those that were once part of it but dared to leave.
There's also a third even worse level of punishment in Violence, the Seventh Circle. It is divided into three parts and the third part of ring 7 is for the sin of Blasphemy, for those who not only dared turn their back to the gospel, but also spoke out against it and God himself. Critics get to burn in blistering sand and under a constant rain of fire.
You should check out the DM's Guild book "Chains of Asmodeus". It is a fascinating outlook into the nine hells
I was thinking the planes spiral along a cone, so looking up you can see the planes coming down the sides. Meaning the lower you go the more you see looking up into the lighter layers
Yeah it is described in a few places like that, where you get a more and more complete view of the plane the lower you go. But then if you think about that how does that work? Because if the layer above you is a larger slice of the cone, then it would take up all of the sky, so how would you see the layers further above the one directly above you? And wouldn't you just see the underside of the layers anyway? Of course I guess the answer is just that shit don't make sense in the Outer Planes.
Man I really want to learn more about Mephistopheles, probably my favorite Archdevil!
He's definitely got the coolest name of all of them.
26:30 So here's why I struggle so much to get into D&D lore. Before coming to this video, I just watched another video about the story of Zariel. In there, it said that at the beginning, there was chaos, and then the gods of law formed and fought chaos. So, in the alignment thing, there was only law and chaos as opposites. Also, there were angels, among which Asmodeus was the best fighter. Then Asmodeus and the bois turned evil and signed a contract with the law gods to make him his own plane, Baator, where he could fight chaos and torture the unlawful mortals without the other angels complaining. Then the gods realised they got screwed over by that contract and tuned Asmodeus in a Devil and yeeted his ass into nessus. And this is when Evil and Good appeared on the alignment. The devils were lawful evil, angels lawful good and demons lawful chaotic.
Now, here you come and tell me about good and bad serpents, Asmodeus being the bad one, and I have to completely throw out the window all I learned in the previous video. It's a total effin mess
Yeah there's contradicting lore in each edition of D&D (and sometimes even within one edition). Really it's up to the DM to use which one they like best, or to use them all as stories without telling the players outright which one is the real story. The lore you just described sounds more like the lore of 5e as told in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. The reason I used the twin serpents story is because that's the one given in second edition of D&D that Planescape existed in (up until very recently because they've now published a 5e Planescape campaign setting set).
What is the source for Takhisis? The DL novels are pretty clear she is locked in the Abyss.
Page 165 of _On Hallowed Ground._ It wouldn't be the first time that D&D sources contradict each other, though generally speaking I tend to view rule/supplement/adventure/setting books as more canonical than novels.
I feel like it may have help clarified in the beginning. How they are corrupted soldiers, the whole good vs evil war going into the order vs chaos that actually led to it. But I get that is a rabbit hole.
Crap. I was half asleep when I signed that apparently
I feel like you should acknowledge the non-serpent origin Mo has in every edition but 2E.
Alright. I've gotten a few comments asking me to include more lore from other editions, so I'll be doing that from now on.
Great vid. Got a new sub.
Thanks for the sub!
Glad you mentioned that. A LOT of stuff in the DnD texts is written in a way that suggests a non English speaker decided upon the words. And no, I don't consider ye olden tyme Englesh to be English.
I was surprised you didn't mention God Street in Dis.
Probably because I mostly used 2e source material for this video. I've been using later edition lore a lot more in my more recent videos though.
combine opposite planes into one video. I think it will flow nicely
12:26
My take on this is math.
Like how a imaginary number can be tied to a physical number through a equation.
Actually, think of it like Minecraft.
You take a portal to the nether, go somewhere and then take another portal out and it's much further away.
Both dimensions might be infinite, but you could argue that they're different sizes even if both are infinite.
Does that make sense to you guys?
Infinite
Infinite plus 1
There are different intensities of infinity so you don't need to worry about the math in that regard. If there are twice as many infinite demons as devils than that just means in a given battle there will likely be twice as many demons compared to devils
Pleaseee make one about Thanatos, the layer of Orcus in the abiss
I love cuirass on your list of awkward fantasy words. Yup I know that word for armor from a video game. I also recently heard a PhD medievalist pronounce it "queer ass".
Bg3 comment; Raphaels lord/leige is mephistopheles. He says that in one of the endings, where he notes that even his "father mephistopheles...".
Does that mean that Raphael probably are a Duke/Arch-Devil under his father Mephistopheles?
Or... is he one of the Damned 8 or... is he a Combion... most people seam to think he is a Cambion... but it doesn't fit in my opinion... ayway.... any thoughts people?
I figured he was a duke, just not an archduke like Mephistopheles is.
Gentleman cutter, I'm really enjoying this series. Brings back fond memories of a Sensate Githzerai I once played. I hope you might be inspired to make a more in depth video about all the planes and attract some subs for your effort. I have certainly shared this playlist with my group.
If I had one criticism it is your pronunciation of Sigil. I've always said /ˈsɪdʒɪl/ (soft g). I did look this up and the IPA I quote is what Wikipedia thinks is how one pronounces sigil, in context of magical runes. Still it's not the end of the world and I have learned quite a lot from these videos, so feel free to carry on and ignore my griping. 😅
Glad you've been enjoying my videos!
I pronounce sigil with a soft g when referring to magical runes, as Wikipedia correctly states it should be pronounced. But Sigil the city is not pronounced like sigil the word.
I didn't find any chapters dedicated to the nine hells in the 5e planescape release..? Did I miss something?
There aren't any. This video is primarily about original Planescape (2e).
@@WadeAllen001 thanks
The next video should about the cosmology counterpart. The seven heaven of Mount Celestia.
First the Hell and than the heaven.
I was thinking the same thing.
here's my soul: with thanks
It’s been YEARS since I played but is there any character(s) that are neutral neutral
You should do a video on mechanus
Mechanus is a cool one, and I will definitely do it at some point. Maybe the next video? I don't know. Right now I've got one vote for the Abyss, one vote for Mount Celestia, one vote for The Gray Waste, and now one vote for Mechanus.
Good video. Shame I'll never finish it.
Yay!
Actually ininities can be different sizes! Some are infinitely bigger than others. Several times over.
Don't think about it too much though. Or at all.
32:39 - "Archons" are the petitioners of the Heavens. Zariel was an angel (or aasimon, in 2e).
Good catch. Though I believe angels are also petitioners, they just get promoted from archons.
@@WadeAllen001 - No. They were there from the beginning, not promoted from petitioners. Such a thing would only be possible, if a petitioner were to reach the uppermost layer of the Heavens, but that is only a theory.
@@fleetcenturion there's a poster in the planes of law book that shows that trumpet and tome archons get promoted into aasimon if they perform their duties well.
@@WadeAllen001 - Despite it being a borderline splat book, I suppose it's canon then.
I think the problem with sigil is that the various planes are infinite in size and then there are an infinite number of material planes but sigil and the outlands are basically finite in size
The Outlands is also an infinite plane. It has a finite boundary but the area contained within that boundary is infinite. Basically the distance between any two places in the Outlands is not constant. Distances are also not constant in Sigil and the city does not have a fixed size, but changes according to the Lady of Pain's whims.
@@WadeAllen001 I see. I had to watch a few more videos. The Plane of Concordant Opposition is its other name. It is deceptive to think about the gate cities at the edges giving it a finite dimension - but no stranger than the other planes. Sigil is a kind of inverse of a prime material plane
Love your Planescape videos. As a DM, I’ve recommended your videos to my players so they’d have some idea of the planes and factions before we start playing.
I would love to use Garden in my game at some point.
I also like the lore between Bel and Zariel. In my last session, I had Bel hide inside a PC’s body (when they visited Avernus) and revealed himself when the players arrived on Celestia, citing that was the way he could get into Lunia and survive the holy water bath. He got the idea from Zariel, whom infiltrated Baator so Bel decided to infiltrate Celestia.
I pronounce baator the same way you'd pronounce baal like from the bible because it sounds right to me and is usually how youd pronounce a double A
Will this video make me a Master of Baator?
Is there enough lore to do one of these for every outer plane?
Yeah. Perhaps not an hour for every one, but at least half an hour.
Bezos roast 👌👌
Asmodeus doesn't become a god until Fourth Edition said he absorbed the divine essence of Azuth, from what I remember.
The origin story of Asmodeus being the cosmic serpent god Ahriman is from 2e (Guide to Hell). You're right though that according to other lore he wasn't a god until the Spellplague.
@@WadeAllen001 I knew about that origin story. There's like three different origin stories from what I remember. Multiple choice past!
2:30 finaly, someone who understands that Evil and Good are only defined as Selfidh and Selfless, being Evil dosen't mean you can't be moral.
Edit: feel the same about the Law/chaos part but this point is more understod by players
Unfortunately we might not be completely on the same page. Being evil is defined as selfishness yes, which means that evil creatures don't necessary kill people or enjoy killing people, but how could an evil creature still be moral? How can one not care about others and be a good person? (Keeping in mind of course, that the more you don't care about other people the more you don't mind if they get harmed in the process of you getting what you want)
@@WadeAllen001 i'm thinking of it as that you can practice moral or ethical ideas for selfish reasons. like Pacifism, you might not care about others getting hurt but you might care about getting blood on your own hands and becoming "impure"
28:38 This doesn't really make any sense to me. Why would someone who doesn't believe in an afterlife go specifically to the lowest layer of the plane of Lawful Evil, regardless of who they were in life?
That's just how the universe works I guess. Or perhaps Asmodeus has done some sort of magic that makes it so. The "why" isn't really explained.
37:01 Now we know where Wulbren Bongle will go after death.
The grief I got as a GM pronouncing Drow like Crow, instead of Cow.
😂 I always laugh when I think back to the Satanic panic. Imagine thinking something is a dark recruiting tool to fiannly bring the anti christ apocalypse and really it's just 5 nerds in a basement eating snacks making d**k jokes and pretending to blow stuff up
That’s what the Devil wants you to think
Note: In the Forgotten Realms setting Asmodious doesn't get his non-believer souls because they get shoved into the soul wall to suffer where they slowly fade away the more they give up on existing. The deities in Forgotten Realms can be real jerks.
Or its all a made up fantasy game and it's your table. Do as thou will.
So are the gods residing within the layers weaker than the archdevils? I thought gods were supposed to be more powerful than archdevils - who are more like demigods.
Why don't they just take the layer over?
The archdevils are certainly supposed to be less powerful than gods. But why don't the gods take over the layers? That's a good question. The short answer is I have no idea, and I'm not sure D&D itself has thought that through too much either. But I'll tell you my thoughts and the possible answers I've come up with.
Honestly, in my mind the lords of the nine (and demon lords and celestial hebdomad, etc) are god-tier in power, if not outright gods. I mean, plenty of people do worship each of the lords of the nine, so why wouldn't they be gods? So that's one answer you could go with, they either are gods or are god-tier in power. Another answer is that perhaps the gods aren't powerful enough to do that. A lot of gods aren't that powerful in D&D anyway. Sure they're certainly more powerful than mortals, but Ao's the only one who seems deserving of the title of god to me. So perhaps a god could kill a lord of the nine in one on one combat, but each lord of the nine has essentially an infinite army of devils at their command.
I would say that the gods are only as powerful as the amount of worshippers they have, and their realms are the manifestation of that power. So perhaps in theory a god could take over a whole layer, but that would require expanding their realm throughout the whole layer by gaining more worshippers. Alternatively, they could leave their realm and try to take over the layer by force, but then what's to stop another god or powerful entity from just doing the same thing and wresting control from them. Perhaps gods prefer to stay in their realms because it's the only place where they have full control. And since realms operate on different rules and look entirely different to the layers they're in, perhaps from a god's perspective their realm isn't *in* the layer at all, but rather just next to it, so they don't feel like they're under the control of a being less powerful than them (because really, they're not. Mammon has no control over the gods that reside in Minauros for example. Though Tiamat is or was under the control of Asmodeus, but Asmodeus is at least a greater god). Another answer lies in the fabled and non-canonical Ordial plane. Where the Astral Plane is the plane of thought, and the Ethereal Plane is the plane of unformed matter, the Ordial Plane is the plane of proof, and of spirit. It is where the true essences of the gods reside. So going with that idea, perhaps the realms these gods keep in the Outer Planes are just intended as permanent homes for the mortals that provided them their godhood, but the gods themselves actually live in the Ordial, and so feel little to no desire to expand their domains in the Outer Planes.
Shouldn't "the garden" be moved to another plane?
Maybe. Clearly though it must be lawful evil for it to stay in Baator. Its beatific nature is just a deception to lure people in and consume them.
Slightly related, 5e has it that Baator used to be a beautiful place, but was corrupted by the devils once Asmodeus took control. And he kept Avernus beautiful so that essentially the whole layer functioned like Garden, as a trap to lure people into the Hells. But then Avernus turned into a barren hellscape due to Zariel's warmongering and invasions of demons in the Blood War.
Perhaps I should've covered this in the video, but I was trying to focus mainly on original Planescape rather than 5e changes. But maybe for future videos I'll include more 5e stuff.
I like that you use mostly 2e Lore.
I'm currently reading up on Planescape myself, as I find it very interesting and want to make a campaign for it. Your videos help me a lot.
@@WadeAllen001 There is the old joke about Bill Gates making a deal with the Devil so that Windows becomes a success. He asks the Devil for a glimpse of Hell. The Devil takes him to a beautiful location where everyone is enjoying themselves and is happy. Gates signs the contract. Decades later he dies, and finds himself in a lake of fire. He demands to know what happened to the place he was shown. The Devil tells him that what he saw was a Beta version of Hell. What he is in is the release version of Hell.