Demons, Devils, and Celestials

[Onysablet]

Hi!

This is probabily a stupid question (or not, I am not quite sure.. )

Can a Demon, Devil, Celestial or similar being die of thirst and/or starvation?

I now have my PC's playing in an old forgotten castle where a lot of weird experiments were done, some of them with this type of creatures, so I'm not quite sure how many time can a being of this type suffer an imprisionment (not by the spell) suposing, for example, there are chained in a kind of circle that supress their abilities (any type).

Can anyone help me?

Thanks a lot!

Bye!

 

[Epametheus]

I'll go out on a limb and say no.

Those are fairly high-end magical creatures, and have little to do with reality as we know it.

In fact, it is unlikely that they even need to eat. If a Tanar'ri eats somone alive, it's because it wants to, not because it needs to in order to live.

So the imprisoned outsiders are probably perfectly fine, though the fiends probably miss the taste of blood.

 

[shilsen]

I'm with Epametheus, primarily for flavor and convenience reasons (so that I can set up the kind of situation Onysablet described). A few outsider descriptions in the MM and MM2 do have references to the creatures feeding, so there's also some argument for the opposite position.

 

[Li Shenron]

Hi!

This is probabily a stupid question (or not, I am not quite sure.. )

Can a Demon, Devil, Celestial or similar being die of thirst and/or starvation?

I now have my PC's playing in an old forgotten castle where a lot of weird experiments were done, some of them with this type of creatures, so I'm not quite sure how many time can a being of this type suffer an imprisionment (not by the spell) suposing, for example, there are chained in a kind of circle that supress their abilities (any type).

Can anyone help me?

Thanks a lot!

Bye!

I'd say it really depends on the campaign setting. From the stats in MM or other books, there is nothing which specifically states that Outsiders are immune to starvation or thirst, but if you have read the Manual of the Planes, you might have noticed that how outsiders live and die it is not rigidly set by the rules of the game. Usually outsiders don't die of old age, but they can be killed, and what happens when they are? Their soul does not depart and go to heaven/hell because it was already there! Do they vanish forever? Does it go somewhere else for a while (you can still bring a dead outsider back to life with a Wish)? When the DM sets up a campaign with outer planes and outsider, he has to decide for these issues, which of course include how do outsiders eat.

If you want my personal opinion, I think that in most settings they don't need to eat, drink, sleep and breathe at all... although the last one may have more concrete consequences on the game.

And, by the way... it was not a stupid question

 

[the Jester]

I'm gonna come down on the side of no need to eat or drink as well. Sleeping and breathing are a little trickier, but hey.

Think about all the stories of demons or whatnot imprisoned for centuries in the bottom of a castle or whatever... not to mention efreeti stuck in bottles, the iron flask issue, etc.

 

[Onysablet]

Hi!!!

Yeah, I think I would do that way, they do not eat nor drink, but they need sleep and breath.
I was no referring to outsiders in general I was only referring to devils/demons/celestials/yugoloths or the like. I think other outsiders need to eat and so on, but devils, etc are so magic/alignement-bound...
I think I'll only let the blood-thirst remain (as Epametheus said).
And yeah, coming to think of it, The Jester, there were a lot of references, hehehe...

Thanks everyone!

Bye!!!

 

[dkilgo]

What level is your party?

Because if you allowed the demons/devils/celestials survive the starvastion then make them famished. Even though the creatures don't require sustenance to survive it sure would make them a lot happier. Set up a really creepy environment that will make even a high level character cringe.

Blood thirsty demons every where... What do I do?

 

[Onysablet]

My party is (an average of) 9th level

I'm pretty sure they are famished, hehehe, call it blood-lust or something like that . And of course, they will be veeeery happy when they see the PC's crossing the door to where they are, hehehehe...
A creepy enviroment, yeah, that's the main caracteristic of this adventure. It's an old forgotten castle where a wizard (now a lich) were making weird experiments and they went wrong... so the castle is full of disturbing places, corpses, undead... and the experiments.
Do you know Silent Hill (1 and 2, it's a creepy videogame, similar to Resident Evil but faaar disturbing)? I'm putting the OST for background music and keeping the lights low (high enough to see our sheets hehe ). This OST is composed by weird music, mostly pointless sounds. Here is a link where you can listen to some tracks:
http://yatesfox.com/SilentHill/SilentHill2/SilentHill2Tracks.html (That' the SH2 OST (the one I use), SH1 is good too (and similar), surf through the page and you will find it too)
They are perfect for this adventure (all my players know this videogame so they were looking funny at me when I told them to put this OST on the cd-player )
BTW, if you wanna know the "outsiders" I was asking for are two: a Zovvut (a demon form MM2) and an Erinyes (you know, that devil that can be easily mistaken by a celestial at first sight... hehehe). Of course, they won't have to fight them at once, I'm not that cruel.

Sorry for the rant!

Bye!!!

 

[demon_jr]

What about petitioners and outsiders with the fiendish/celestial/half templates?

Just for the sake of logic, I would go with outsiders needing to eat and drink, just like any other beings.

However, for the sake of convenience and for less rules crunching, I would say it would be better to not worry about such things, unless it added more fun or flavor to your campaign.

 

[dkilgo]

I do like the sound track. It has some very interesting elements to the music that could, under the right lighting, make an adventuring party a little nervous.