Controversy and Related Changes Between Editions
A number of critics of Dungeons & Dragons (mostly fundamentalist Christians) have accused the game of promoting Satanism and occultism, most vociferously in the mid-1980s, but like heavy metal music, this is no longer as visible a target as it once was. Some products, particularly the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, have shown actual symbols classically used by witches and magicians for summoning, abjuration, and protection.
TSR, Inc. eliminated most references to occult symbols, demons, and devils from the second edition of the game under great pressure from anti-D&D negative publicity. When the creatures were reintroduced in the Monstrous Compendium supplement MC8: The Outer Planes, the terms "baatezu", "tanar'ri", "yugoloth", and "gehreleth" were introduced and were used exclusively in place of the terms "devil", "demon", "daemon", and "demodand", respectively.
Following a more relaxed attitude towards the hobby, Wizards of the Coast reinserted many of these excised references in the third edition of the game. This said, they kept intact the terms they had been replaced with, using both when applicable to appeal both to older players and those who played in subsequent editions of the game which introduced the use of the replacement terms (which were used during the 2nd edition of the game, in which the vast majority of material on the fiends of D&D was expanded and given depth). The latest edition of the game does not however use the 1st edition D&D term 'Daemon', instead continuing to use 'Yugoloth' in its place, leaving 'daemon' as an effectively defunct and abandoned term (in our world, daemon are something close to a muse, a divine inspiration in the Greek mythology and so effectively do not fill in the role of evildoer).
Read more about this topic: Fiend (Dungeons & Dragons)
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