So I’ve come up with an idea for a campaign, it will involve the many evil races that are known to gather in very large groups coming together, posing a serious threat to the land. The main races that will be featured are game orcs, gnolls, and goblinoids. My idea is that Yeenoghu, Gruumsh, and Maglubiyet to form a pact of war, combining their forces into a massive horde that the players will try to dimantle.
The question I pose is, would the 3 beings I listed ever be willing to work together? They are all extremely selfish beings, but they also know that their respective races aren’t enough to try to take over any extremely large area such as a continent. I know that as the dm I can say they work together because I say so, but would there be any other main reason for Yeenoghu, Gruumsh, and Maglubiyet to ally their races together for the purpose of conquering?
Maglubiyet and Gruumsh waged an eternal war between each other. Yeenoghu would probably work with one of them, he's a demon lord, not quite a deity like the other two. Maglubiyet would probably force himself to be in control of everything since he's known as the mighty one.
It's your campaign and your world though, you can change things as you see fit to do what you want!
/e Maglubiyet and Gruumsh could make a pact together to work together (there would be lots of infighting on who gets to be the leader because they both would want to be the boss dog) to destroy the ones that mocked them bringing all 3 of them together like you wanted, but they would definitely make secret plays to get each other to make suicide runs or even turn on each other while fighting together.
If you do it - which I think sounds neat, have Mag and Gru send messenger boys to your party to share plans on what each other are doing in return for help destroying each other, unbeknownst that they are both giving the pcs everything they need to know about them including where they are weakest and how to go about getting the jump on them.
If the pcs are smart and think they could pull off a bait and switch better than Mag and Gru. Agreeing with Mag to make a stand against Gru, and agreeing with Gru to make a stand against Mag getting them to attack and destroy each other.
Like Jusblazm said, the orc gods and goblin gods are locked into an eternal war. Presumably, Maglubiyet is attempting to conquer the orcs and bring them under his dominion like he did with the goblin races after killing their gods. I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of the Blood War, but this is basically the same thing, just with goblins and orcs instead of demons and devils.
Meanwhile, the gnolls.... the gnolls are one of the few mortal race in D&D that's actually evil by nature; most "evil" races are evil as a result of being brought up in a culture that teaches them to act a certain way. Take a drow, an orc, a goblin, a duegar and raise them in a positive environment, and they'll be good people. Gnolls, no matter where you raise them, will always be crazy, rabid beings due to the madness inherited from Yeenoghu. They're wild, undisciplined cannibalistic psychopaths who are just as likely to kill and feast feast on orcs and goblins as they are on humans - they're designed as the embodiments of senseless slaughter and destruction, not exactly the best recruits in an army.
Now, you can have all of them work together, but you're going to have to be willing to change lore around quite a bit. Each of these three factions represent a different flavor of evil - goblinoids are the Evil Overlord's Army serving the tyrant-god, orcs are the Barbarians at the Gate seeking to sack Rome and gnolls are a humanoid locust plague, just devouring everything in its path. For instance, in the Drizz't series, at one point the orcs settled down and tried to build a kingdom, becoming rather goblinoid-like in outlook for a hundred years, forming disciplined armies allied with giants and other races. Yet claimed it was One Eye's will.
Or, perhaps, give up having the three gods work together, and have one god in charge that has taken control of the other races. Perhaps Maglubiyet has forced order onto the gnolls, freeing their minds from Yeenoghu's madness and enslaved orcs to their religion. Conversely, Yeenoghu inflicts madness through his presence and cultists, so he could have infected a goblin army and orc raiding encampment. Or just ignore the gods altogether, and have the low level individuals involved. Unless you plan on taking this to the Outer Planes, I don't think it really matters what the gods think or do. If your players aren't into the lore or religion of these races, does it really matter? Its very easy to overlook in a game.
Gnolls, no matter where you raise them, will always be crazy, rabid beings due to the madness inherited from Yeenoghu. They're wild, undisciplined cannibalistic psychopaths who are just as likely to kill and feast feast on orcs and goblins as they are on humans - they're designed as the embodiments of senseless slaughter and destruction, not exactly the best recruits in an army.
This is why the gnolls are perfect imo. Mag gathers them up and cages them. Starves them and pisses them off then upon attack goblins loosen the cages enough where the gnolls rabidly ramming into it are capable of busting out, sure they're going to attack and eat some goblins but they're also going to attack and eat anything else that moves.
Then of course Yeen is going to want to retaliate against Mag for this but, Mag made a deal with one of Yeen's rival demon lords. Where if Yeen leaves his layer in the abyss the other demon lord, wanting the power Yeen has would swoop in and attempt to take over his layer causing Yeen to stay in his layer and protect it instead of retaliating against Mag, because it's easier to regrow his devout than it is to conqour another layer of the abyss.
The gnolls will always provide an unproductable play on the battlefield. This is an advantage for you as a DM if for say, the battle is a bit tough on the PCs. The gnolls could attack the goblins/orcs helping thin the numbers evening it out a bit.
This is why the gnolls are perfect imo. Mag gathers them up and cages them. Starves them and pisses them off then upon attack goblins loosen the cages enough where the gnolls rabidly ramming into it are capable of busting out, sure they're going to attack and eat some goblins but they're also going to attack and eat anything else that moves.
That's taking what I said a bit out of context. The OP was talking about Yeenoghu, Gruumsh, and Maglubiyet working together. If one side dominates the other, that could still work, and I talked a bit about that myself. But an alliance of equals that share goals? Not likely to happen.
No I agree, they would never create an alliance of equals between each other especially when you look at what they're all about, hell, you can barely get good natured entities to create an equal alliance without ulterior motives. That's why I talked about Mag finding a way to neutralize Yeen, from an agreement with another demon lord. That would leave him free to do at will what he wants with the gnolls without fear of Yeen -at the moment-
Now, I really know nothing about either of these 3. What I know is from 5 minutes of looking at all 3 of their forgotten realms wikia page. So everything I'm thinking of is really just some sort of ploy I find feasible in one way or another. But again there would not be an equal alliance and I never assumed there would be.
Thank you for the input. I in no way thought that an alliance between these 3 being would be a peaceful one, considering who we’re talking about. There would be plenty of backstabbing amongst the races, but nonetheless, they would prove a very serious threat against most things they come across.
A lot of the information I'm pulling is from Volo's Guide to Monsters. That's a really good book for looking at the mindset of the major antagonist cultures of the D&D world.
All in all, the campaign idea itself is pretty good. Indeed, its not uncommon for such armies to have contacts with ogres and drow on top of the usual orcs, or duegar and giants allied with goblinoids. Orcs might even work with gnolls to an extent. The main problem is that goblin-kin and orcs are generally opposed to each other; its hate on the level of drow versus duegar, devil versus demon, gnome versus kobold and gith versus mind flayer. The racial grudge is handed down like a family heirloom.
I’ve read volo’s recently, and that’s what gave me the idea. The gnolls, orcs, and goblinoids are the 3 races that will come together in groups of hundreds to do their lord’s bidding, so it made sense that they could come together and try to take a large area instead of the relatively small ones they usually cover. The orcs and goblinoids do hate each other, but not to the degree other races do(dwarves and duergar, drown and other elves, githyanki and githzerai are examples of races that I think would be nearly impossible to stick together and expect them to work together against anything smaller than a world ending threat), but I feel like it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to make them work together for a common cause, begrudgingly if nothing else. The gnolls would be harder to work in because of their naturally chaotic nature, but they’d do whatever Yeenoghu told the to do and if they were promised meat, which there would be much of.
Hm? That doesn't quite jive with what I know about invading gnolls and orcs?
Gnolls don't take land. They're wandering marauders. They see a village, they attack it to not only loot the place, but to eat all the food, especially the inhabitants. Gnolls are cursed to hunger for the flesh of sapient beings, and are "creatures of savage blood lust, incapable of understanding or acting on any other impulse. ...They pause only to devour what they have killed, and to fashion crude weapons and armor from their victims’ corpses." They move in such small numbers that they consider attacking single villages to be a major battle - there's no impulse or presence of mind to form larger armies. Indeed, its questionable if gnolls can form an army, because any non-gnoll / Yeenoghu cultist is required as food.
D&D Orcs gods are basically glorified bandit lords, who tell their people to establish a bandit camps, then head out to pillage supplies and slaves, rather than forming agricultural communities of their own. Curiously, the bandit analogy is strong enough that we even see orcs abandoning land they've claimed in order to follow the civilized races around to continue raiding them instead of holding land. Of course, this culture is easy enough to change, and indeed has happened several times in different D&D worlds. You'll need to figure out why One Eye and Fiery Eyes seem to have dropped their eternal war and rivalry for this, in case it becomes relevant to the plot, but that should be easy enough.
This is your campaign, so don't let anything I say stop you, but I do feel that there's a bit of lore discrepancy in the discussion here. I feel like you're taking the goblinoid plot (conquering host) and just adding other races to it. Which is totally a cool thing to do, but I feel like there's a misunderstanding behind the motives of the orcish pantheon as well as the demon lord.
I do like the idea of the goblinoid host, but I feel like they wouldn’t pose much of a threat to anything more than a small kingdom. I want them to be a big threat, and I feel like adding 2 more races would be perfect for them to pose an extremely dangerous threat to possibly an entire empire.
The alliance I’m thinking of is basically that they agree to set aside their differences for a time to gain more than they ever could apart, then they could go back to hating each other’s guts. The gnolls would be harder to work in than the orcs and goblinoids, seeing as they are more capable then the gnolls at seeing things the way I want them to.
Now that I’m thinking about it more, I might just make this campaign about orcs and goblinoids rather than all 3. Thank you for the input.
Hm? With all due respect, I think you're forcing a round peg into a square hole when the easier solution is just to increase the levels and numbers of the goblinoid races. Furthermore, goblin gods promote slavery, so its more than likely that the army will be further bolstered by taking any kingdom they conquer and convert the people into their armed forces. Rather than making an alliance of gods, why not just make it an army of captured slaves bolstering the ranks? Bonus points for hobgoblin necromancers raising armies of undead and conjurers calling out fiends and elementals. Maybe even a conversion ritual that transforms the body as each area is conquered - wouldn't be the first time.
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So I’ve come up with an idea for a campaign, it will involve the many evil races that are known to gather in very large groups coming together, posing a serious threat to the land. The main races that will be featured are game orcs, gnolls, and goblinoids. My idea is that Yeenoghu, Gruumsh, and Maglubiyet to form a pact of war, combining their forces into a massive horde that the players will try to dimantle.
The question I pose is, would the 3 beings I listed ever be willing to work together? They are all extremely selfish beings, but they also know that their respective races aren’t enough to try to take over any extremely large area such as a continent. I know that as the dm I can say they work together because I say so, but would there be any other main reason for Yeenoghu, Gruumsh, and Maglubiyet to ally their races together for the purpose of conquering?
Maglubiyet and Gruumsh waged an eternal war between each other. Yeenoghu would probably work with one of them, he's a demon lord, not quite a deity like the other two. Maglubiyet would probably force himself to be in control of everything since he's known as the mighty one.
It's your campaign and your world though, you can change things as you see fit to do what you want!
/e Maglubiyet and Gruumsh could make a pact together to work together (there would be lots of infighting on who gets to be the leader because they both would want to be the boss dog) to destroy the ones that mocked them bringing all 3 of them together like you wanted, but they would definitely make secret plays to get each other to make suicide runs or even turn on each other while fighting together.
If you do it - which I think sounds neat, have Mag and Gru send messenger boys to your party to share plans on what each other are doing in return for help destroying each other, unbeknownst that they are both giving the pcs everything they need to know about them including where they are weakest and how to go about getting the jump on them.
If the pcs are smart and think they could pull off a bait and switch better than Mag and Gru. Agreeing with Mag to make a stand against Gru, and agreeing with Gru to make a stand against Mag getting them to attack and destroy each other.
A Graduation to be Remembered | A Village Bathed in Crimson
Like Jusblazm said, the orc gods and goblin gods are locked into an eternal war. Presumably, Maglubiyet is attempting to conquer the orcs and bring them under his dominion like he did with the goblin races after killing their gods. I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of the Blood War, but this is basically the same thing, just with goblins and orcs instead of demons and devils.
Meanwhile, the gnolls.... the gnolls are one of the few mortal race in D&D that's actually evil by nature; most "evil" races are evil as a result of being brought up in a culture that teaches them to act a certain way. Take a drow, an orc, a goblin, a duegar and raise them in a positive environment, and they'll be good people. Gnolls, no matter where you raise them, will always be crazy, rabid beings due to the madness inherited from Yeenoghu. They're wild, undisciplined cannibalistic psychopaths who are just as likely to kill and feast feast on orcs and goblins as they are on humans - they're designed as the embodiments of senseless slaughter and destruction, not exactly the best recruits in an army.
Now, you can have all of them work together, but you're going to have to be willing to change lore around quite a bit. Each of these three factions represent a different flavor of evil - goblinoids are the Evil Overlord's Army serving the tyrant-god, orcs are the Barbarians at the Gate seeking to sack Rome and gnolls are a humanoid locust plague, just devouring everything in its path. For instance, in the Drizz't series, at one point the orcs settled down and tried to build a kingdom, becoming rather goblinoid-like in outlook for a hundred years, forming disciplined armies allied with giants and other races. Yet claimed it was One Eye's will.
Or, perhaps, give up having the three gods work together, and have one god in charge that has taken control of the other races. Perhaps Maglubiyet has forced order onto the gnolls, freeing their minds from Yeenoghu's madness and enslaved orcs to their religion. Conversely, Yeenoghu inflicts madness through his presence and cultists, so he could have infected a goblin army and orc raiding encampment. Or just ignore the gods altogether, and have the low level individuals involved. Unless you plan on taking this to the Outer Planes, I don't think it really matters what the gods think or do. If your players aren't into the lore or religion of these races, does it really matter? Its very easy to overlook in a game.
This is why the gnolls are perfect imo. Mag gathers them up and cages them. Starves them and pisses them off then upon attack goblins loosen the cages enough where the gnolls rabidly ramming into it are capable of busting out, sure they're going to attack and eat some goblins but they're also going to attack and eat anything else that moves.
Then of course Yeen is going to want to retaliate against Mag for this but, Mag made a deal with one of Yeen's rival demon lords. Where if Yeen leaves his layer in the abyss the other demon lord, wanting the power Yeen has would swoop in and attempt to take over his layer causing Yeen to stay in his layer and protect it instead of retaliating against Mag, because it's easier to regrow his devout than it is to conqour another layer of the abyss.
The gnolls will always provide an unproductable play on the battlefield. This is an advantage for you as a DM if for say, the battle is a bit tough on the PCs. The gnolls could attack the goblins/orcs helping thin the numbers evening it out a bit.
A Graduation to be Remembered | A Village Bathed in Crimson
That's taking what I said a bit out of context. The OP was talking about Yeenoghu, Gruumsh, and Maglubiyet working together. If one side dominates the other, that could still work, and I talked a bit about that myself. But an alliance of equals that share goals? Not likely to happen.
No I agree, they would never create an alliance of equals between each other especially when you look at what they're all about, hell, you can barely get good natured entities to create an equal alliance without ulterior motives. That's why I talked about Mag finding a way to neutralize Yeen, from an agreement with another demon lord. That would leave him free to do at will what he wants with the gnolls without fear of Yeen -at the moment-
Now, I really know nothing about either of these 3. What I know is from 5 minutes of looking at all 3 of their forgotten realms wikia page. So everything I'm thinking of is really just some sort of ploy I find feasible in one way or another. But again there would not be an equal alliance and I never assumed there would be.
A Graduation to be Remembered | A Village Bathed in Crimson
Thank you for the input. I in no way thought that an alliance between these 3 being would be a peaceful one, considering who we’re talking about. There would be plenty of backstabbing amongst the races, but nonetheless, they would prove a very serious threat against most things they come across.
A lot of the information I'm pulling is from Volo's Guide to Monsters. That's a really good book for looking at the mindset of the major antagonist cultures of the D&D world.
All in all, the campaign idea itself is pretty good. Indeed, its not uncommon for such armies to have contacts with ogres and drow on top of the usual orcs, or duegar and giants allied with goblinoids. Orcs might even work with gnolls to an extent. The main problem is that goblin-kin and orcs are generally opposed to each other; its hate on the level of drow versus duegar, devil versus demon, gnome versus kobold and gith versus mind flayer. The racial grudge is handed down like a family heirloom.
I’ve read volo’s recently, and that’s what gave me the idea. The gnolls, orcs, and goblinoids are the 3 races that will come together in groups of hundreds to do their lord’s bidding, so it made sense that they could come together and try to take a large area instead of the relatively small ones they usually cover. The orcs and goblinoids do hate each other, but not to the degree other races do(dwarves and duergar, drown and other elves, githyanki and githzerai are examples of races that I think would be nearly impossible to stick together and expect them to work together against anything smaller than a world ending threat), but I feel like it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to make them work together for a common cause, begrudgingly if nothing else. The gnolls would be harder to work in because of their naturally chaotic nature, but they’d do whatever Yeenoghu told the to do and if they were promised meat, which there would be much of.
Hm? That doesn't quite jive with what I know about invading gnolls and orcs?
Gnolls don't take land. They're wandering marauders. They see a village, they attack it to not only loot the place, but to eat all the food, especially the inhabitants. Gnolls are cursed to hunger for the flesh of sapient beings, and are "creatures of savage blood lust, incapable of understanding or acting on any other impulse. ...They pause only to devour what they have killed, and to fashion crude weapons and armor from their victims’ corpses." They move in such small numbers that they consider attacking single villages to be a major battle - there's no impulse or presence of mind to form larger armies. Indeed, its questionable if gnolls can form an army, because any non-gnoll / Yeenoghu cultist is required as food.
D&D Orcs gods are basically glorified bandit lords, who tell their people to establish a bandit camps, then head out to pillage supplies and slaves, rather than forming agricultural communities of their own. Curiously, the bandit analogy is strong enough that we even see orcs abandoning land they've claimed in order to follow the civilized races around to continue raiding them instead of holding land. Of course, this culture is easy enough to change, and indeed has happened several times in different D&D worlds. You'll need to figure out why One Eye and Fiery Eyes seem to have dropped their eternal war and rivalry for this, in case it becomes relevant to the plot, but that should be easy enough.
This is your campaign, so don't let anything I say stop you, but I do feel that there's a bit of lore discrepancy in the discussion here. I feel like you're taking the goblinoid plot (conquering host) and just adding other races to it. Which is totally a cool thing to do, but I feel like there's a misunderstanding behind the motives of the orcish pantheon as well as the demon lord.
I do like the idea of the goblinoid host, but I feel like they wouldn’t pose much of a threat to anything more than a small kingdom. I want them to be a big threat, and I feel like adding 2 more races would be perfect for them to pose an extremely dangerous threat to possibly an entire empire.
The alliance I’m thinking of is basically that they agree to set aside their differences for a time to gain more than they ever could apart, then they could go back to hating each other’s guts. The gnolls would be harder to work in than the orcs and goblinoids, seeing as they are more capable then the gnolls at seeing things the way I want them to.
Now that I’m thinking about it more, I might just make this campaign about orcs and goblinoids rather than all 3. Thank you for the input.
Hm? With all due respect, I think you're forcing a round peg into a square hole when the easier solution is just to increase the levels and numbers of the goblinoid races. Furthermore, goblin gods promote slavery, so its more than likely that the army will be further bolstered by taking any kingdom they conquer and convert the people into their armed forces. Rather than making an alliance of gods, why not just make it an army of captured slaves bolstering the ranks? Bonus points for hobgoblin necromancers raising armies of undead and conjurers calling out fiends and elementals. Maybe even a conversion ritual that transforms the body as each area is conquered - wouldn't be the first time.