Abyssal Lord

Every Abyssal lord is a unique tanar'ri with its own goals, gifts and flaws. Most rule a whole layer of the Abyss, though the weakest fight rivals for one. What lifts them above lesser demons is a talent for leadership and planning; they still rage in battle, but they mask their hunger for ruin, and when it breaks loose the sight is awe-inspiring. Two examples follow.

Zhar'vesh rules three Abyssal layers and is famed for pride and an icy composure rare among demons. He favors the form of a towering, heavily muscled ebon-skinned man with pointed ears, small fangs, burning green eyes, and six digits on every hand and foot. In any shape he has Strength 18/00, Dexterity 17, Constitution 19, Intelligence 20, Wisdom 19 and Charisma 18. He delights in jarring contrasts, like a severed head centered on a feast table, though he lives simply, giving entire rooms of his palace over to a single hue or subject: war, say, or blood, or storms. A team of eight charger demons, four black and four white, pull his carriage. He wears radiant white, bears silver weapons, and speaks the tongues of demons, devils, mercenary fiends, devas, chaos toads, vorthani, zerathi and humans, with telepathy for any other thinking being.

Combat: A fine swordsman, he still prefers magic, using his items first. He has the casting power of a 20th-level mage and may use one power per round, at will unless noted: chaos, continual darkness, emotion, dispel magic, mirror image, magic missile, duo-dimension, polymorph self, teleport, telekinesis (to 1,500 lbs.), read magic, read languages, vanish and water breathing; once a day each disintegrate, polymorph any object and veil; polymorph other three times a day; trap the soul weekly. Thirteen babau guard him, so he seldom melees, but when he does, any weapon he holds becomes an acid-dripping horror, hitting twice a round for its normal damage, his Strength bonus, and 1d4+4 acid. Unarmed, he strikes four times a round for 1d6+6 each. In the Abyss he can gate at will either 1d2 balor (60%) or 1d4+1 babau (40%). He has used a wand of frost, a robe of eyes, a cloak of displacement, a chime of opening and a sword of sharpness, and can use any item open to warriors, priests or wizards.

Followers and plots: Fear keeps his servants loyal. He is fickle and hates failure, rewarding success richly and repaying failure with maiming or death, and he changes sides when events turn. Vastly rich but not greedy, he spends wealth as a weapon and grants gifts to mortals for a debt of service, a bargain that always stains the soul. He has sired demigods on the Prime, among them a cruel one who has caused great suffering, and he schemes mostly against fellow lords, caring little for the endless war between demons and devils. He would rather twist a pact's wording than use brute force, and keeps three times as many plots going as any rival. His dream is a fourth layer: an entire prime world dragged into the Abyss. His present plan uses a captive goddess of trade as leverage to extract her divine mantle from her friend, a goddess of joy, giving him a foothold in that world. Even if she escapes he will press on, claiming she had become useless, first sending vrock spies (which look like vultures from afar and can wear illusions) to scout its power centers and seek allies among its mercenary cabals, tyrant cults and slaver-wizards.

Ossaruk is a huge vrock-like tanar'ri with gold and crimson feathered wings and a divided mind, usually cool and subtle but prone to sudden mad fits in which he must seize a thinking creature in his talons and rip it apart. His scores are Strength 19, Dexterity 19, Constitution 18, Intelligence 19, Wisdom 19, Charisma 18. He has mated with harpies, humans and vrocks, and some of the cambion offspring serve as ministers and spies across his layer, the Stormroost, while others plot, so far fruitlessly, to overthrow him.

Combat: At 20th level he uses one power per round at will: fly, cloudkill, stinking cloud, death fog, flesh to stone, statue, shape change, tongues, call lightning, control weather, weather summoning, wind walk and darkness 15-foot radius; chain lightning and incendiary cloud once a day; and daily one symbol each of pain, hopelessness and death. Twice a day he can try a gate (70% success) for 1d4 vrocks (60%) or 1d4 buzzing demons (40%). He has infravision to 200 feet and senses invisible things within 120 feet. His 7-foot two-handed sword +4 strikes twice a round for 2d8+4 against small or medium foes and 3d8+4 against bigger ones; alternatively he attacks with two claws (2d4+7 each) and a beak (1d12).

Followers and plots: He keeps few possessions beyond rings and bracers of protection worn as jewelry and at least six javelins of lightning. His emblem of rule, the Blinding Talon, is a giant roc claw worked with gold and rubies the size of vulture eggs. Its known powers are clairvoyance, true seeing and cause blindness at will, plus unholy word, reverse gravity and meteor swarm once a day; any non-tanar'ri touching it must save vs. polymorph or become a vrock or buzzing demon, with full system shock. It can hang in midair anywhere in the Abyss as his perch. Other perches serve as seats where he takes on followers, promotes or punishes tanar'ri, each left with a notoriously unreliable minister. Fearing Zhar'vesh covets his layer, he spies on him, and their servants often clash; he also tracks his rival on the Prime, where his own shadow demons grow strong raiding, unaware that Zhar'vesh knows. His fiends must seize evil magic items and learn how they are made.