5e/Pathfinder: The Pit of Eternal Torture

Last year, I shared my thoughts on an alternate take on the planes of law and chaotic evil. I always intended to get back and describe the rest if the planes, but I got distracted and never finished. Well, I thought I would take a few moments and jot down my thoughts on the lawful evil plane, or as I like to call it, the Pit of Eternal Torture.

Let me just state that I am doing this because I feel that angels, demons, and devils shouldn’t be in a fantasy realm. I prefer facing something without the real world mythology bleeding in. This way I can flavor it as best fits the story as well as experiencing the joy of creating something new. And when it comes to kytons, there’s lots of room to create.

Kytons, also called chain devils in some versions, believing in giving pain and not just oppressing the damned in their charge. They believe in following the rules and that rule breakers are to be savagely and severely punished. If you are healed, it is only so you can continue working for them. Kytons do not just take pleasure from pain but from the resistance of the mind’s resistances crumbling. They do not only want to beat their followers (also known as charges), but to break them as well.

When a kyton is done with you, you should not be able to see a world outside of them.

People that willingly submit to a kyton’s will have many reasons: they offer strength in troubling times, they make the world seem simple by categorizing everything as good and bad (which their charges understand as pain free and painful), and they demonize anyone and anything that is not for them. To those that see the world as dangerous, siding with such a powerful force seems attractive.

In reality, the kytons make the world a far more dangerous place. However, their followers do not see that infact they are helping to make the world more dangerous. By excluding anyone that disagrees with them, it is easy for the kytons to manipulate their charges into working to cause the very dangers that the kytons say they can save people from. This way, the kytons claws are clean while they sow pain and oppression into the world.

Kytons work in darkness. The light of truth can undo their work. It is for this reason that kytons prefer a dark world. Every kyton works to spread darkness throughout the world. So when their charges can see nothing except the kytons as the solution to their problems, this bother literally and figuratively the case.

Be sure to follow the JBE blog for more on my take on the planes and those that dwell within. Maybe next time I’ll write about one of the good ones.

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November 26, 2018 0

Pathfinder/5e: Lands of Eternal Chaos and Destruction

I know that last time I posted a blog post on my own vision of the planes for Pathfinder and 5e, I promised the chaotic neutral plane. Well, after thinking on my vision more, I realized that it was not Chaotic Neutral at all but Chaotic Evil. Since I am still trying to put my ideas for CN into focus, I will go ahead and share with you my idea for the Chaotic Evil plane, or as I like to think of it, the Lands of Eternal Chaos and Destruction.

Before I begin, I want to reiterate why I am doing this (incase you missed it on my various social media posts). Angels and devils and demons are a solid class imagery of good and evil … that I hate using. First off, they are ripped from a Judo-christian tradition. While there is nothing wrong with taking from real world mythology and putting it into your game, I do not feel it right to set one religion apart and say that religion feels are symbols of pure good and evil should be a fantasy world’s symbols for pure good and evil. So I want to change them into something that would be both unique and understandable to those in our own reality today, those 1,000 years ago, all the while still making sense inside of a fantasy setting. All that said, here we go.

There is a quote I absolutely love from the TV Show MASH.

War is war. Hell is hell. Of the two, war is worse. … In hell there are no innocent bystanders. Everyone there deserves to be there.

And this, more than anything else is my guiding light for my vision of the plane of chaotic evil. This plane should be a war-torn hellscape. Imagine the images out of Syria. That is this land of unreason. Constant fighting. Constant warfare. The element of fire’s forces are burning down the fey forests who are in turn fighting the air force’s sail barges, who are … you get the idea. Through it all are the mercenaries. These creatures of pure evil with no regard of loyalty or order care not for what they destroy as long as they get to destroy something. They join one side and help them for however long they are paid to do so and once they are done will gladly fight against their former employers if paid by someone else.

What is worse, this is where the worst weapons are first created. A people so obsessed with warfare are always looking for an edge over those they fight against. Military people that become consumed with the thought of destroying their enemies will be more than happily make whatever bargain the mercenaries are asking for, no matter how perverted, cruel, or conniving if it means they get a hold of the means for triumph.

Be sure to revisit JonBrazer.com frequently to see the next in our series of reimagining the outer planes. Next time we will do one of the good ones.

June 7, 2017 1

5e/Pathfinder: The Plane of Law

I was thinking about the Planes in your typical DnD/Pathfinder game. I have never been satisfied with them. D&D has always had angels on the good planes, devils on lawful evil, demons on chaotic evil and something else on neutral evil. That always left me wondering, “What are on all the other planes?”

Paizo has refined that more, inevitibles, psychopomps, proteans, azatas, archons, aeons, and a bunch others. It is a step in the right direction, IMO, but I’ve always disagreed with they did.

Here’s my ideas: the Lawful Neutral Plane shouldn’t be machines because that is a modern idea of predictability. Even as recent as 50 years ago, people distrusted machines, not believing in what they produced. What represented law 1000-3000 years ago, metal (the iron age, the bronze age, etc) and military strength. So my own interpretation of lawful neutral outsiders would be a metal golem-esque military. Something akin to the kolyarut and marut inevitibles (get rid of the rest in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 2), but even they look too machine-like. I mean living suits of armor. Pikers, phalanx shield fighters, military horses. All polished, gleaming metal, not something broken down and barely holding together-looking like the zelekhut. The plane would look something like military parades, factories, practice fields, etc.

Next time, I’ll talk about the Plane of Chaotic Neutral.

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May 15, 2017 2