Aldinach
The Lady of Change, The Lady of the 33 Terrors, She of the Six Venoms, Aldinach of the 33 Winds, Alrinach
Planar tanar’ri lord of transformation, deserts, change [she/her] / CE
Lair: Abyss / Pazunia / Aldinach’s Egg
So now you’re asking about one of the most infamous figures in Pazunia, Aldinach, the Lady of Change. Just hearin’ her name brings a bitter taste to my tongue, and for good reason. Saying her name is like whispering a secrets to the wind and then finding the wind turning around to strangle you with your own words, that one is.
A fortress amidst a roilin’ storm, and a storm one that stretches for hundreds of miles, bringin’ havoc and misery wherever it reaches. That’s where she sits, presidin’ over a dominion of chaos and transformation, in her stronghold Aldinach’s Egg. Don’t even ask about the kinds of things she and her minions get up to in there. Or do ask, but you won’t like the answer.
Now, this tanar’ri lord, she’s a real piece of work, a master of change and deceit. Her appearance is a thing of nightmares, a monstrous humanoid scorpion visage, usually hidden behind an alabaster mask, with fingers ending in needles carrying a vile toxin that corrupts and transforms all it touches, bringing agony or ecstasy with a single touch. A real puppeteer, she is, pulling the strings of Abyssal politics from behind the scenes, manipulating and scheming to further her own dark desires. But there’s an allure to her, for she can take on a form most beautiful, a bewitchin’ blue-skinned woman with wings and the feet of a bird of prey, seductive yet terrifying in her grandeur. To witness her in this form is to be both entranced and horrified, caught in the dichotomy of beauty and beast.
She’s got connections that reach deep into the mythos of many a land, including that of the Egyptian pantheon, where she’s beseeched to guide her storms and tempests away from cities and into the deserts. This fiend has got her fingers in many pies, not the least being her relationship with Pazuzu. Chant goes she’s either his ally or consort, but the real dark is much more surprising — she is his mother. A complex and bloody affair, their relationship is, filled with deceit, manipulation, and ulterior motives, dark as the storm clouds surroundin’ her fortress. Word on the chant is she’s playing the long game, supporting and assisting Pazuzu’s empire building, all the while waiting for the perfect opportunity to take him out of the picture and claim his territories for herself.
After her puppetry of Abyssal lords, her pièce de résistance, is the corruption of the pure and the innocent. She’s got her cultists, twisted berks that they are, snatching the purest of souls from the prime, and bringing them to her Egg fortress to endure torments most vile. Imagine the cruellest of experiments, the desecration of all that is good and holy. Ki-rins, lammasus, righteous holy figures – none are safe from her depraved desires. All are brought before her to be reshaped, twisted into grotesque parodies of their former selves, just for her wicked amusement.
Sources: Fiendish Codex I [3e] p115-116 (description of Aldinach’s Egg), expanded by Jon Winter-Holt, mimir.net
