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Compare the planescape bodak to its original picture in the "Monster
Manual II" (might have been "Fiend Folio"). That original picture does evoke
feelings of dread at humanity that was. The current concept, ick. It looks
like a Disneyfied Gollum from "The Hobbit". Sure, it is more horrifing from
a Ravenloft stand-point (something along the lines of "Oh, look at the cute
little bunny. Wait, what's it doing? Oh,no! RUN!"); but from the Abyss,
there is no way in Hell (pun slightly intended) that the Abyss would produce
anything that friendly looking (succubi being the exception).
This ties into my point about the changing nature of TSR's depiction of the Lower Planes...are they EVIL or are they just bad neighborhoods? for example, look at _Iuz the Evil_, a great supplement from the Greyhawk campaign world. Iuz has towers where he burns captive races to death, apparently alive. He is EVIL, (and let's NOT discuss what Evil means right now) and nastier than most Planescape fiends in published behavior, and he is a Prime dweller. Is TSR going soft to prevent public uproar, or is it an editorial choice to make the Lower Planes more accesible, or what?
I think TSR hasn't changed a thing in the depiction of Evil. Let me explain my PoV: 1) Fiends are... fiendish as Jon'd say -- in game terms they are 'evil'. 2) Fiends know that clueless primes tend to identify evil with inflicting pain, random killing, raping, maiming, torture, suffering, looking bad, ugliness, horns, tails, bad breath, shocking colours, delaying OHG, etc. So fiends choose their prime agents so that they look this way... so that people know they are 'evil'. 3) Fiends also know that planars are not clueless and that they are blase' and won't buy the 'I'm evil I stink and I rape maidens' act. That's why they act 'normally' when they interact with them: instead of trying to scare the f**k outta them, they try to trick them into their plots. Which brings me to the following conclusion: * when DM'ing a party of primes, feel free to avoid their interacting with fiends, and feel free to punish them if they do so by changing their alignment; after all, primes are so thick with cluelessness that they cannot help but think of fiends as horrible stinking maiden-raping evil beasts. * when DM'ing a party of planars, it's different: the PC's may well have already met fiends in an inn in Sigil or in a gate town, so they know the most dangerous thing ain't fighting fiends but talking with 'em!
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