Hades and the Minion War

[SlaytheDragon]

Is there anything written about how the Minion War has affected the Greek God Hades and his domain? According to Pantheons Hades has a realm that borders all the other Demon Lords areas, but nothing is written about him (as far as I'm aware) in the Hades Dimension Book. His realm isn't even described in the book either, as I assumed he had his own area of Hades(the dimension) that he would control.

Thoughts?

[Axelmania]

I figure his realm is subterranean so at best he interacts with Mictla, his upstairs neighbor. Probably doesn't care what losers rule on the surface as long as left alone.

[eliakon]

basically as far as can be told...
...they have more or less retconned the whole 'universal underworld' thing from CB2 out of the game and gone back to the "Hades (demons) is a singular dimension" thing.
Which is rather critical since otherwise there wouldn't BE a minion war plotline...
...they would just be marching hither and yon across the 'lower plane' and there wouldn't be any purpose in the whole 'minion war' at all.
This idea got discarded in the Nightlands Book, but the stake in the heart came in the LoD with the Great Rift and the Minion War with the idea of needing to use a dimensional portal to get to the others realm instead of being able to simply walk there. This got reinforced in Hades, Dyvall and all the rest and is now basically just tacitly ignored.

[Axelmania]

I can't recall any explicit retcon, more like they just forgot / have not acknowledged what CB2 said. Similar to many Carrella works, the approach is more often to simply ignore or minimize the logical impacts of the universe aspects which Carella designed.

Regarding Nightlands, I'm not sure where you got the idea that Nightlands discarded it. Pantheons and Nightlands have the same author (Carella) and I have only seen it reinforce the idea that Hades Aideonous inhabits the realm of Hades. Page 128's "The Demon Netherworld" mentions "the abode of several gods of darkness, including the deity of the same name (see Rifts Pantheons of the Megaverse and the Palladium Fantasy RPG's Dragons & Gods).

"Rumor Mill: The Great Rift" on page 28 of Land of the Damned - Chaos Lands mentions "portals to Hades and Dyval as well as other hellish realms (and elsewhere?)" but I'm having trouble locating mention of the Greek / Indian gods who cohabit Hades. Could you direct me to what you mean by "stake in the heart game in the LoD with the Great Rift" ?

Pre-emptively I would note though: Dyval serves as an example of something talked about as a single realm even though you need portals to get between the layers, so one could take a similar "layers" approach to Hades if that would reduce complications in people's minds.

I would view Modeus as ruling the first/top layer in that case, similar to what Hel rules in Dyval. The realm of Hades Aidoneous (Pantheons 70) including the Interdimensional Prison of Tartarus (though it is confusing how something "inter-dimensional" can exist IN a realm) could be perceived as existing on a different "layer" of a shared dimension.

Earth/Nightlands might be viewed in a similar way, as being 2 layers or sub-dimensions of a single massive dimension.

Ravana (Pantheons 137) who also explicitly exists there ("The demon's essence travelled to Hades, where loyal raksashas took care of him and eventually built a new body for their king.") seems largely absent from the politics of the Minion War, or the geography of realms when we are shown maps of hades.

For that reason, it is easier to conceive of his realm, like Hades Aideoneous, as being subterranean, explaining why we do not see it on the maps. The maps are how the SURFACE is divided, and don't necessarily matter much once you get far enough down.

This is also where you can place Kansa (Pantheons 138):

Ravana and Kansa have reached an agreement not to interfere with each other, but the two great demons do not trust each other
enough to work together. The same goes for Modeus.

112 is pretty clear:

The Ravana, King of the Raksasha, makes his residence in a portion of Demonic Hades which is in effect, an independent
kingdom beyond the influence of the Greek god Hades or the Demon Lord Modeus (see Rifts Conversion Book One).
The Demon Lord has not challenged Ravana regarding his underworld kingdom for fear of defeat, while Hades is content with his massive part of the eerie dimension.

One dimension, multiple kingdoms. Tartarus is explicitly subterranean, I can't remember the Hindus specifying that but it's the simplest solve.

Or if you don't take a "flat earth" approach from these maps, you could put him on an island on the other side of the 'planet'. I'm not sure if any books talk about what exists on the "edge of the world" so to speak.

We know from this that Kansa/Ravana do not work with Modeus, but have agreed not to interfere with him. That means they agreed not to help or hinder him, which would explain why they would not be involved in the Minion War. Neither trusts Modeus, so they might find him losing to the Dyval Lords a hilarious outcome, or they could be just as suspicious to the Dyval Lords but offer similar terms of non-interference to them.

Where I can see problems is with Balrogs (pg 139, Kansa uses them) and Raksasha (Ravana has some). Competing for minions, poaching them from each other, is probably a big possible source of consternation, and "courting" greater demons to join your side probably toes the line of what constitutes interference.

Also interesting is Aeshma (Pantheons 197) who we later learn is an elevated Brek-Shall greater demon of hades. He is accompanied by a few Balrog, but the small number is probably negligible.

Another thing to keep in mind, is regardless of sharing dimensions, the gods from Pantheons of the Megaverse sometimes have explicit mention of interactions with the Gods of Light and Darkness from Rifts Africa, who I believe are intended to be the same gods from the Palladium Role-Playing Game and from Dragons and Gods. Though I guess the universe is possibly large enough for at least 3 Thoths or 2 Xys if a GM desires each to be a separate being.

Examples include:

39 The Babylonians felt some enmity toward the Egyptians, but it wasn't a deep, resentful hatred. Despite some clashes between the two pantheons, Marduk and Ra have similar viewpoints, and common enemies in the Gods of Darkness.
66 "Herakles battled Anhur and won."
68 Zeus "He has a degree of friendship with the mysterious Egyptian deity Thoth"
74 Athena has connections with such deities as the Norse god Balder, the Babylonian Marduk, the Egyptian Isis and the Persian Ahura Mazda.
82 Ares gets along well with a couple of war deities from other pantheons, including the Persian god Verethraghna and the Egyptian Anhur.
83 Besides Soma, Dionysus has good relations with the Faerie peoples (they love his parties) and some Irish gods. He used to be friends with the Egyptian god Bes,
120 The Egyptian goddess Isis and Ratri are good friends.
131 Garuda has made friends with Ra and the other bird-gods of the Egyptian Pantheon.
147 The Egyptian god Set is also likely to get involved, since he hates the Norse gods
148 Odin: "not well-liked by the Celtic, Greek or Egyptian gods"
160 Freyr: "knows Marduk the Sumero-babylonian god, as well as Isis from the Egyptian pantheon."
179 Ahuru Mazda: "Ra and Isis from the Egyptian pantheon feel a degree of friendship toward him"
183 Eros retaliated with a cruel and potentially dangerous, joke: he shot the Egyptian god Ptath with a love arrow, making him desire Armaiti

Note that 83 also ties Rifts England's Celtic Pantheon (Dagda and co) into the mix. Bes per D+G 162 is buddies with Kubera-Loe, so if Bes+Kumera encountered Soma+Dionysus, that could cause some drama that mixes Hades/Taut/

This is a link to the Minion War because the GOLAD (mostly the Gods of Darkness) have relationships and plots afoot with the competing factions of Demon Lords in Hades. Marduk explicitly considers them an enemy, and since Isis should support Ra getting Athena on board would be the next step (she has connections with both of them). I don't know if Thoth supports Ra as much, but Zeus' friendship with him combined with supporting his daughter Athena (despite her rebellion with Hera and Poiseidon and 30 years of jail) could be enough to solidify a lot of Greek support, especially if Hades Aideoneous saw opportunity to expand his territories.

Ahuru Mazda of the Persiand and Balder of the Asgardians are a bit of a looser connection, but I think with two cuties like Athena and Isis working together to recruit, it would have a good sales pitch. The former more likely because the "connection" on 74 is at least a 1-sided friendship per 179, and Mazda could be motivated to reciprocate friendship.

Anhur is a god of darkness so that could bring Herakles against him, perhaps with Ares helping indirectly (he likes Anhur, hates Isis+Herk) as he wouldn't want to **** of Zeus by opposing Herakles+Isis openly. Ares would probably need Hades Aidoneous on board to cover up any help he did, which would require Hades Aideoneous actually wanting to help Modeus or hinder Sahtalus' conquest.

Verethragna might be a good equalizer, if Ares can buddy up with him

It seems like most influence would be to inadvertently help Dyval, as the Dyval gang are certainly subtler in their machinations, and less obvious a threat since they don't have self-replicating Death Demons or mess around with planet AIs who can manufacture Cosmo-Knight tier greater demons.

The "Gods of India" connection is pretty huge here. Aside from Soma, among the Vedas you have the more explicit Isis-Ratri sisterhood and among the Brahmans you have the birdhood of Ra-Garuda. Maybe them helping out the Gods of Light might motivate Ravana+Kansa to help out the Gods of Darkness in their own plots to support various Demon Lords, but they could just as easily let their competitors fight it out and wait to attack the victor. Of course, fear of that might be a factor which keeps the Gods of India out of things, to keep their guard up against R+K.

Ptath is an Egyptian god I don't know anything about, but he's connected enough to have "strained relations between the Persians and the Egyptians" due to pursuing Armaiti (due to Eros).

[Armorlord]

Had some revelations on this in a past thread on the topic: http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2199840#p2199840

Main takeaway was that Modeus himself was specifically listed as part of the Hordes of Hades that Hades could command, and, later on in time, Modeus was listed as commanding all the Hordes of Hades thanks to his acquisition of the Omega Book from the previous lord.

With that in mind, it is easy to postulate that Hades lost the Book to Modeus through some means.

For my games, I go on to assume that, in the aftermath, a deal was struck to leave Hades' underworld and Tartarus prison alone, both to avoid dragging the Olympians into things and because Modeus wouldn't want any of those imprisoned trying to muscle in on his rule.

My new concern is pondering how the rest of the Greek underworld gods work into this. Nyx and Erebus spawned a fairly large family of them.

[Axelmania]

That could work I suppose, but where do the two Indian demon lords fit into this?

[SolCannibal]

basically as far as can be told...
...they have more or less retconned the whole 'universal underworld' thing from CB2 out of the game and gone back to the "Hades (demons) is a singular dimension" thing.
Which is rather critical since otherwise there wouldn't BE a minion war plotline...
...they would just be marching hither and yon across the 'lower plane' and there wouldn't be any purpose in the whole 'minion war' at all.
This idea got discarded in the Nightlands Book, but the stake in the heart came in the LoD with the Great Rift and the Minion War with the idea of needing to use a dimensional portal to get to the others realm instead of being able to simply walk there. This got reinforced in Hades, Dyvall and all the rest and is now basically just tacitly ignored.

Truth be told i think the whole 'universal underworld' gig is unique to CB2, no other book, before or after it, ever references such a thing, afaik, so it's up to you ignore, keep or to tweak to whatever you feel would work best for your own campaign (posters have already thrown some nice hooks here and there in the topic).

Another problematic thing when it comes to taking CB2's 'universal underworld' concept at face value is the fact later books like Dragon & Gods implying at least one of the Alien Intelligence Demon/Deevil Lords from Conversion Book (Mephisto if memory tricks me not) is actually not the real thing, but an impostor masquerading as him (while claiming to be the ruler of Dyval, to boot!) for its own mysterious reasons, meaning everything relating to the Conversion Book 1&2 demon/deevil lords is actually false/references the actions of Alien Intelligences impersonating them - and possibly further complicating the Minion War (false Mephisto declaring itself "Ruler of Dyvval", what is patently false but sounds just like the kind of egomaniacal thing the real one might do, could very well be a stealth move to spread rumors, paranoia and distrust among deevil ranks while screwing up Mephisto among its own along the way, for example).

[Axelmania]

It's unique to CB2 because it was CB2 which introduced the greek and indian gods.

D*G referring to an imposter actually supports the CB1 / Dark Conversions "alien intelligence" NPCs existence, with a concurrency with the D+G "deific" less-AI sorta demon lord.

The idea of genuines/imposters meshes perfectly with CB2 which included several instances of it.

Asmodeus / Aidoneous / Ravana are the trinity of complications for Modeus, no doubt. A duplicate Mephisto just makes it a quartet!

[SolCannibal]

Anyway, i prefer to gloss over the "one hell realm" thing from CB2 because it was pretty much what canon itself has done. The multiple realms are independent but with some degree of uncontrolled communication/interface through random rifts and other dimensional anomalies, what can lead to far from infrequent border conflicts, diplomacy and intrigue of all types between all parts involved, something further complicated by the interference of the AI imposters such as the false Mephisto (the only one acknowledged as such in the books, afaik).

Though one of my pet theories is that the Modeus behind the Red Flame demon teams of Nightbane - whose races have no relation whatsoever to anything in DB10 - should not be the real demon lord and ruler of Hades, but the AI imposter from CB1 and Dark Conversions.