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Ryu Hayabusa wrote:For the DC chart of sample information learned about Thanatos, the results for DC 40 and 45 are identical. Is this on purpose or a mistake?

Ryu Hayabusa wrote:Feedback: I like most of this, and in particular how you took the effort to select really good hazards for Thanatos. In general the attention to detail is what makes this work stand out, versus say a WoTC supplement, which is often dealing with more generalities than area fluff and mechanics.

PAOLO wrote:Well, after a few days reading all the stuff, I'm ready to post a few impressions. I will divide my comments and questions in three blocks: general, flavour notes and technical notes.

General notes: three concepts here: Awesome, too much, increasingly complex.
1 - The work is impressive. After reading all this, I was compelled to take off the shelve my first edition AD&D monster manual and rest for a minute on the well-know Orcus image and stats, you know, the ones who depict Orcus at 120 hp and -6 armor class, and I pondered for a while on the changes and evolutions the fella had over the last 23 years. The Orcus presented here is a lovecraftian cosmic horror, a being whose power and malice spread though planes and dimensions like a cancer. The idea that once this being was once a mortal adds to the mystery and power a human can acquire under third edition D&D.
2 - On the other side, printing all the material means a 100 page booklet, so I wonder if this is the hallmark of Horror, as there is the risk of having too much discrepancy between the various demon princes (like, 100 pages for Orcus and 10 for Nero) (on the other side, we're talking about abyss here, so who cares for homogeneity.)

3 - Finally, all those stats are difficult to read. Basically we have the interactions of the demonic templates (by the way, I don't know which version of the demonic templates are you using, as the only one actually present in HoA boards is the Demon lord template) with the new power rules. Maybe it would be good to post again, the demonic templates, to better frame logically the technical steps you use when designing demon lords. I find hard to understand how the final product come out (example: Orcus spells. He's an outsider with frenzied berseker class levels added on, so I assume he gets spells from his demonic templates or from his power stats. He seems to have clerical spells at 58 level, but I can't understand from where did he gets the number and power of those spells). In short, maybe it would be useful a (very) brief description explaining when you design demon princes how you let the template interact and which versions of the templates are you using.

Flavour notes: Orcus' background is amazing... but knowing the work dicefreaks is capable of pulling out, and knowing Palindrome's skills (I still remember when he come out with his first article on dicefreaks boards posting Lolth.... it was like discovering a Tyrannosaurus in your garden) , I didn't expected anything less. The story is great, I like a lot the explanation of the motivations for Orcus and Demogorgon's rivality. It was always assumed the two were rivals just for their power, now we have a more philosophical answer: the long-term goals of the devourer of souls (corruption of the material world, but leaving it well alive and thriving so to be consumed) is antithetical with Orcus' kind of corruption, the state of undeath devoided of consumable energies Demogorgon needs. I would also add the fact that Orcus is a mortal, an upstart, more linked with the needs and perverse desires of mortal beings, so it must be seen as a dangerous rival for a being older and representing an ancient type of corruption, linked to a cosmic and ancient scale. On the other end, the reasons for Orcus and Graz'zt war is not very much justified, maybe you could spend a little more effort here giving us a more “philosophical” background of their hate. There are some repetitions in the text, maybe the paragraphs concerning the rivalitiy with Demogorgon and Graz'zt should be placed all together (so you could take the two small parts dedicated to the first atropal and the death knight and put together with the later section).

By the way great idea to present the possibility that the skull on top of the dreaded wand is in fact the remains of Orcus mortal self.

Technical notes: As said, it's difficult to understand how the stats were assembled, an explanation would be useful. Also, the stats block is not easy to follow when you pass to the descriptive part of the stats. If we put together all his special abilities and qualities, we have his Special qualities (abyssal dominion, abyssal sovereign, deathless frenzy, death throes, demonic ideal, divine mockery, inimical), then his ravages (Ability Damage (Cosmic), Additional Natural Attack (Common), Bonus Feat (Common)(x8), Bonus Epic Feat (Abhorrent), Channel Energy (Abhorrent), Class Feature (Abhorrent), Class Feature (Common), Energy Drain (Vile), Extended Reach (Vile), Ignore Immunity to Critical Hits (Cosmic), Mimic Type (Abhorrent)), then his salient abilities (Alter Form, Avatar, Call Demons (52 HD maximum, 14 demons at once), Call Undead (52 HD maximum, 28 undead at once)(x2), Curdle the Blood (Unique Salient Ability), Demonic Chasm, Demon Prince, Demon Prince of the Undead (Unique Salient Ability), Supernal Rage, Supernal Skill Focus (Spellcraft), Dread Curse (Unique Salient Ability), Energy Storm (negative energy, 14 points of damage/round), Hand of Death, Hoarding The Spirit (Unique Salient Ability), Know Death, Life and Death (DC 77 Fort save or die, else 14d8 points of damage), Necromantic Mastery (Unique Salient Ability), Possess Mortal, Taint of Undeath (Unique Salient Ability)).

So the alphabetical order of all his special powers, qualities and abilities should be:

Ability Damage, abyssal dominion, abyssal sovereign, Additional Natural Attack, Alter Form, Avatar, Bonus Feat, Bonus Epic Feat, Call Demons, Call Undead, ,Channel Energy, Class Feature, Class Feature, Curdle the Blood, deathless frenzy, death throes, Demonic Chasm, demonic ideal, Demon Prince, Demon Prince of the Undead, divine mockery, Dread Curse, Energy Drain, Energy Storm, Extended Reach, Hand of Death, Hoarding The Spirit, Know Death, Life and Death, Ignore Immunity to Critical Hits, inimical, Mimic Type (Abhorrent),Necromantic Mastery (Unique Salient Ability), Possess Mortal, Supernal Rage, Supernal Skill Focus (Spellcraft), Taint of Undeath (Unique Salient Ability).

If however I look at the description of the text, the order is the following:

Abyssal aura (abyssal vehemence -despair, euphoria, fear, insanity, loathing, nausea- by the way, maybe you could delete the abyssal aura as it doesn't add anything to the description of the abyssal vehemence)
Wake of corruption
channel energy
curdle the blood
death throes
demonic chasm
demon prince (abyssal sovereign, demonic impasse, divine mockery, induce ravages)
demon prince of the undeath
dread curse
extend reach
fury
hoarding the spirit
inimical
necromantic mastery
semi-undead traits
tainth of undeath
(other powers)

in short, I think there are some discrepancies between the powers under the stat block and the ones described, maybe you should check to better align the two (es, there's no description of “possess mortal” or “know death” or “Life or death” powers, while “Abyssal aura” and “wake of corruption” should find place in the stat block under SQ or under salient abilities).

I find kind of ...peculiar the choice of frenzied berseker as class for him. The background explain this very well, and it's coherent with the take recently assumed by Wotc on Orcus as the Lord of Hate ans Spite in addition to his traditional undead portfolio.

When you talk about summoning Orcus, your' re talking of his avatar or is it possible to summon Orcus itself?

As a very final note, maybe you should mention among his enemies the unforgiven Saint Sollar the Twice-martyried, the solar servant of Bahamut who was instrumental in Orcus demise from Toril.

Evilmonkeygod wrote:Now that there's a pair of different, though linked articles, i think a main page for this wiki needs to be created.

Witch wrote:It's been a long time since I frequented these boards, and I hadn't discovered that this chapter had been published until a few weeks ago. It was nice rereading Orcus' background after such a time, and I must indeed extend my congratulations and thanks to Palindrome for finishing the job. At times, it looked like a Herculean task - and it was easy to get discouraged (as I was). It's great that it's done, though.

The Serge wrote:Horrors work is on hiatus for the forseeable future.

hvgotcodes wrote:

The Serge wrote:Horrors work is on hiatus for the forseeable future.

nooooooooooooooooooo.

sorry to hear that. The material is excellent and interesting. I was hoping to see Apollyon...

The Serge wrote:

hvgotcodes wrote:

The Serge wrote:Horrors work is on hiatus for the forseeable future.

nooooooooooooooooooo.

sorry to hear that. The material is excellent and interesting. I was hoping to see Apollyon...

Things might change.

In any event, I plan on posting some unused material on these boards in the next few weeks so people can see some of the stuff that was completed.