&*$@£
SPOILER WARNING! This article contains spoilers for the Dead Gods adventure
The Demon Prince of Undeath; Keeper of Everlost; Master of the Last Word; Tenebrous
Planar tanar’ri lord of undeath, necromancy, wrath [he/him] / CE
Lair: Abyss / Layer 113 — Thanatos
The most triumphant example of a self-made demon prince, &*$@£ rose through the ranks from a lowly manes all the way to a mighty balor before claiming his mantle of Prince of Undeath. Contemptuous of all living things other than himself, &*$@£ desires to cast down Demogorgon, assume his title, and spread undeath through demonic cults across the Material Plane. Despite his association with the undead, he considers them little more than means to an end; he holds no regard for them save for what they contribute to his wars against Graz’zt and Demogorgon, his most despised foes—though they are but the crown of a long list indeed.
&*$@£ is the very image of demonic evil, with vast wings like the night itself, a distorted head like that of a monstrous goat, a venomous serpentine tail, all borne upon a corpulent torso of rotting flesh. He has flirted with true divinity, at one point attaining the power of the gods in death as his alter-ego, a wraithlike being called Tenebrous. Now restored to life, he has been stripped of the power he once held, but his time wandering the planes as a living shadow with godhood just out of reach has left him only more hateful, more hungry for what he has tasted and lost. &*$@£ rules over Thanatos, the 333rd layer (sometimes also numbered 113), from his dread palace Everlost.
Canonical Sources:
- Book of Vile Darkness [3e] p71-72,125,127,130,136-141
- Dead Gods [2e] p6,8,52,56,58-59,62,75,87,98,112,114,121 (Orcus); 8,30,32,34-37,48,52,56,58-67,70-71,73,90,95,97-98,100,102-104,112-118,120-124,159 (Tenebrous)
- Dragon Magazine #270 p67-68; #312 p68; #322 p88; #341 p24,30,72-73; #348 p60; #353 p40; #354 p35-36,48; #356 p67; #357 p21-22,70; #358 p67; #359 p62,98
- Dungeon Magazine #089 p47-50,52,58-59,62,64; #107 p50; #147 p54,56,60,81; #148 p63,70; #149 p41-43,49,52-54,56-57,83; #150 p62-68,70-72,76,91,94-96,99
- Fiendish Codex [3e] p48,51,63,73-74,79,107,118-119,125,127-132,139,155-156
- Faction War [2e] p71
- Great Modron March [2e] p12-13,124-125
- Guide to the Ethereal Plane [2e] p46
- Hellbound: Dark of the War [2e] p15
- Inner Planes [2e] p67
- Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. 2 [2e] p60
- Manual of the Planes [3e] p102-103,111
- Monster Manual V [3e] p66
Canonwatch: SPOILER WARNING! This being was stripped of the name ‘Orcus’ in the epic Planescape adventure Dead Gods [2e], which struck out all references to it across the planes. I’ll be continuing with this tradition: the Googloths and SEO be damned!
Source: Afroakuma, first published here