Abyssal Lord, V’aughrosfl

V’aughrosfl, tanar’ri lord

Portfolio: Tanar’ri lord of paranoia, cunning, manipulation

V’aughrosfl [pronounced vor-ROS-ful] is a small, human-like tanar’ri lord. His looks are such that he’s often the joke of even his own troops. He looks like a red and black skinned tiefling with black hair streaked with red, and jet black eyes without pupils. V’aughrosfl actually seems quite skinny, and sometimes his skeleton shows through his skin. V’aughrosfl’s ability scores are: Strength: 15, Dexterity: 20, Constitution: 16, Intelligence: 21, Wisdom: 19, Charisma: 18. 

For an Abyssal lord, even for a tanar’ri of his calibre, he is quite physically weak. V’aughrosfl covers those weaknesses with his careful planning, long term plans and downright treachery. He rules only a portion of a layer, as most of his powers, patience and interest are committed to other plans. It is known he has many dealings outside the Abyss, even in the upper planes, and he does travel a lot to Sigil — considerably more than the usual, compared to other tanar’ri lords.

COMBAT: V’aughrosfl despises physical combat, as he much rather kill from afar, using minions or magic. In fact, he is seen as a coward among his peers but he has stayed alive like this more than 2900 years. He acts as a mage of 23rd level, and in addition, as a wild mage at 16 level. Quite powerful in magic, he has additional powers which he can use once per round, at will (unless otherwise noted): clairvoyance, clairaudience, chaos, continual darkness, power word: silence and the usual tanar’ri racial abilities.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Being quite paranoid, V’aughrosfl doesn’t put much in his tanar’ri followers. Sure, he has his personal bodyguard, made up of powerful yet loyal tanar’ri. These are quite loyal as they have followed him for many centuries, thus earning his relative trust (in other words, he lets them get slightly closer to him than others, and lets them act as his bodyguards). V’aughrosfl has relatively few troops, but those he has include many vrock and armanite and bulezau — very specialised troop classes.

Besides the troops used to defend his citadel, and his reserve forces (he is always ready for any kind of situation), he lends many of his troops to other lords in return for favours, power, services etc. Despite controlling only a portions of a layer, a small one at that, he is a rich and influential lord. He gained his riches in his many dealings outside the Abyss. Many operations, which have great gains in store can be found with financing, he has many holdings in the prime, outlands, Carceri and even a bit in the Upper Planes.

He has many contacts all over the planes and he has a “knack” at finding the weakness of other beings. There are those who claim he has agents go through the garbage of other Abyssal lords looking for info on them. They laugh, but they know the truth — he just might do that!

CURRENT CHANT: 

V’aughrosfl knows he is weak. His forces, though well-trained and superbly equipped, are few. just a century ago, when V’aughrosfl still controlled all of his layer, the Abyssal Lords Graz’zt, Pazrael and Zuggtmoy had their eye on it. V’aughrosfl too care of that. In a genius move, he invited a powerful balor who had aims at Abyssal lordship, to come and base in his layer – and essentially handed over most of his layer to this balor. The balor came with his hordes of Blood War veteran troops (more than a match for any of Graz’zt’s or Pazrael’s forces), and thus were any plans of V’aughrosfl’s plane’s conquest, ruined. The balor now “ruler” of his layer, is not too bright. Strong, adept at battle — yes, but no cut out for the usual scheming and dealings of the Abyssal politics. 

It is rumoured that V’aughrosfl feared a coalition between Graz’zt and Zuggtmoy, and so he secretly aided the forces of good who attacked the Temple of Elemental Evil on Oerth with magic and information. Some suggest this to be the reason he has dealings in the upper planes that are “ignored” by the high-ups there and that his known non-fiend minions can walk freely there. 

As he is currently protected well by his balor puppet lord, his only fear is of several Abyssal lords joining forces against him. He is wary, but is not jumping at shadows, as he knows that a coalition among the power mongers of the Abyss is a rare thing indeed.

He currently is funding explorations into the Abyss through agents he has in the Guvners, and is rumoured to be heavily investing in some gate-town to an upper plane. 

V’aughrosfl fears his fellow Abyssal lords (especially Graz’zt and Pazrael), and is known to act against those who threaten his standings, bit never directly. The last Abyssal lord to directly threaten V’aughrosfl found an invading force of baatezu. Baatezu who “just” happened to have the key to a portal in his plane and the all the information on his defences. V’aughrosfl has no qualms on dealing with anybody, including baatezu, celestials and mortals.

Source: David ‘Draegarius’ Alexander