Fiends

The term 'Fiends' has two distinct meanings in the world of Oberon:

• It is a term for someone with a lowly or despicable nature ("You sir, are a fiend for for suggesting that!")
• It is the collective term for the creatures known more properly as Demons and Devils

The latter meaning is the one under discussion on this page.

Fiends are the physical and moral opposite to that other group of other-worldly creature, Celestials. Although both are primarily interesting in harvesting the souls of the dead, Fiends do so for some measure of personal gain. The exact nature of that gain depends on which sub-type the Fiend belongs to and how far up their respective hierarchy they are.

It is important to remember that Fiends though, no matter how powerful, are not deities. They are only able to (temporarily) affect the Prime Material Plane (the plane of existence upon which Oberon exists) if expressly summoned, or indirectly through their followers. Deities however can manifest upon the Material Plane and permanently affect it, seemingly at will.

This is not to say that Fiends should not be a cause for concern. Some Fiends, notably the Demon Lords and Devil Princes, are powerful enough to affect a small region permanently by channelling their will through a secondary source (an artefact or physical breach between the Planes, but such occurrences are very, very rare and tend to attract a lot of unwarranted attention from Deities.

The Blood War

Fiends hate Celestials, but they reserve their most vehement anger and violent tendencies for each other. Almost for as long as Demons and Devils have been separate species has there been an ongoing conflict between The Abyss and The Nine Hells.