Full transcript
The Obyrinths & Tharizdun
Before time as we know it, there existed a universe on the edge of annihilation. Ancient beyond measure, this dying realm was ruled by beings of pure, incarnate evil, the obyriths. The obyriths were vile entities unlike anything the cosmos had ever seen. They presided over the remnants of their dying realm, their hunger consuming every last drop of life and power. As their realm neared its final collapse, the obyriths hatched a desperate plan. In the last age of their race, they would breach the barrier between worlds and plant a shard of uttermost evil.
With great effort, the obyriths breached the barrier between their dying realm and a new one, pushing a shard of uttermost evil through the fissure, hoping to corrupt the most powerful beings beyond. The plan was sinister in its ambition. By corrupting and enslaving the powerful beings of this new realm, the obyriths would seize control of an entirely new universe to reshape in their own vile image. Eons passed. The obyriths slowly died, their numbers dwindling to a mere handful.
But just as their kind neared extinction, the plan they had set in motion so long ago finally began to bear fruit. A deity hungry for power discovered the shard and seized it. This god was Tharizdun, and the moment he touched it, his mind was open to the dying obyriths, corrupting him instantly and driving him to madness. The obyriths demanded Tharizdun plant the seed of evil within the Astral Sea, promising him total dominion in return. Yet even in his madness, the god recognized this would turn his fellow deities against him.
Instead, the mad god traveled to the farthest reaches of the cosmos. He journeyed to the Elemental Chaos, the realm of the fallen primordials, where he hoped to plant the seed and claim a realm of his own. The planting of the seed unleashed power unlike anything the Elemental Chaos had ever witnessed.
Nascent evil flared as black flame, exploding through a yawning vortex that formed where the seed struck. Forced to act despite plans gone astray, the last surviving obyriths allowed themselves to be drawn through the vortex as their own realm was finally and completely destroyed, consumed by the black flame.
Birth of the Abyss
The vortex that formed around the shard became the Abyss, growing within the Elemental Chaos. But the obyriths had miscalculated. Their puppet Tharizdun turned on them with power they could never have predicted. In the depths of the newborn Abyss, Tharizdun turned on his would-be masters, shielded from their wrath by the link they had forged, and empowered by the shard’s evil, the mad god called forth the very first demons. Beings born from the burgeoning substance of the nascent Abyss, the first demons howled in fury at their creator’s command, throwing themselves at the obyriths in wave after suicidal wave.
The shard had granted Tharizdun far more power than the obyriths could have predicted. Only by working together did the last twelve obyriths stave off the mad god, forcing an uneasy stalemate. As both sides withdrew to plot the other’s destruction, the growth of the Abyss settled and slowed. For the first time, beings outside this newly created realm took notice of the dark power growing within.
The Prince of Demons
Drawn by whispers promising power and dominion, the first primordials entered the Abyss. As creatures unconcerned by morality, they pressed deeper despite the corruption they observed within the dark new realm. Deeper in the desolation, the primordials came upon a great blood-red ocean. They knew they had reached the heart of the Abyss at last, and floating in the shallows was the shard of evil, calling for a master. The first to step forward was Demogorgon, a primordial of unbridled fury.
As this immense being waded into the turbulent surf, another creature rose from the darkened depths beneath to challenge him. The obyrith Dagon rose from the depths to challenge Demogorgon’s claim. The two mighty beings clashed in a battle that turned the sea into a bloody storm, neither gaining the upper hand. While they fought, a third being crawled from a hitherto unseen pit. Obox-ob, a loathsome obyrith of putrescence and filth, crept forward and seized the shard, becoming the very first Prince of Demons.
The Infinite Layers of the Abyss
Despite gaining unparalleled power as Prince of Demons, Obox-ob was not its full master. The shard compelled him to carry it to the Astral Sea, but the weight of its purpose was almost too great to bear. Demogorgon, Orcus and Baphomet, already in the throes of demonic transformation, feared that Obox-ob will gain dominion over all the cosmos if he reached the Astral Sea with the shard. They attacked Obox-ob before he could reach the Astral Sea, hurling the Prince of Demons and the shard back into the vortex. Where Obox-ob struck, the Abyss was sundered, forming a deep fissure. The blood sea drained away in a boiling storm into the deep fissure known as the Blood Rift.
The shard of evil fell into the lightless depth, with Demogorgon, Orcus and Baphomet diving into the rift in pursuit. As the three followed the Blood Rift into the depths, they were finally transformed into true demon lords. Yet their power waned the deeper they descended. Alarmed, the three wisely retreated. Another powerful primordial, Garash, slipped past the three as they retreated, hoping to claim the shard. He was never seen again. Since that day, even the mightiest demon lords feared the Blood Rift’s depths.
In time, chasms appeared across the Abyss. The malevolent maelstrom that had formed the Abyss was growing, as the shard of evil burrowed deeper and deeper into the primal foundations of the Elemental Chaos. These chasms formed conduits to uncharted layers of the Abyss, and the demon lords began establishing their mighty domains in these new layers, bending the Abyss to their indomitable will.
Tharizdun the Chained God
The primordials’ intrusion pushed Tharizdun to act. Unable to defeat the demon lords alone, he traveled to the Elemental Chaos. Calling himself the Elder Elemental Eye, he rallied its primordial denizens. Tharizdun’s deceit rallied elemental creatures to his banner as he laid plans for universal domination, and the Cult of Elemental Evil grew. Only a few knew him as the God he was. Chief among Tharizdun’s lieutenants was Miska the Wolf-spider, a powerful primordial of terrifying aspect. It was Miska who was charged with assaulting the Abyss and retrieving the shard of evil. But the gods’ attention had been drawn to the Abyss.
When Tharizdun’s plans were finally discovered, his immortal kin acted swiftly. Together, they overcame the powerful mad god with their combined might. Tharizdun was locked away in a remote Abyssal layer. They named him the Chained God and struck his name from history, hoping to erase his existence from memory. Tharizdun’s armies were scattered, but they were not yet defeated. Marshalled by Miska and the Princes of Elemental Evil, the host fought on against the obyrith and primordial demon lords of the Abyss.
Queen of Chaos in The Dawn War
Above the Abyss hangs a cruel, stationary sun. Once every millennium, an immense mote of elemental earth eclipses it, blanketing the first layer of the Abyss, the Plane of a Thousand Portals in total darkness. The most powerful obyrith known as the Queen of Chaos watched from the darkness. As the eclipse began, she saw her chance to seize the power that the demons and Elemental Chaos primordials had fought over for so long. On the plane, Obox-Ob’s armies were defending the portals against Miska.
The Prince of Demons had been weakened, cornered by Miska’s forces as they pushed toward a portal to the shard’s resting place. At the crucial moment, the Queen of Chaos struck. She slew Obox-Ob, dethroning the Prince of Demons and offered his reign as a prize to Miska the Wolf- Spider in exchange for his eternal allegiance. Already succumbing to the Abyss’s call and doubting Tharizdun would ever be freed, Miska gave his allegiance to the Queen of Chaos in exchange for her aid.
The forces of chaos were thus united. With the might of the Abyss and the armies of the Elemental Chaos behind her, the Queen of Chaos suddenly had near-absolute power.
She looked past the Abyss and assaulted the Astral Sea, joining the Dawn War. The assault began a climactic period in the Dawn War. The combined forces of chaos battered the deities, and the Astral Sea seemed utterly lost. Divine bastions fell one by one before the relentless tide of destruction.
The Rod of Seven Parts
As bastions fell, hope was being forged in secret. An exarch of Moradin and seven angels of Bahamut known as the Wind Dukes of Aaqa worked with the divine Soul- forge of Moradin to craft the Rod of Law. The Rod of Law was imbued with the essence of divine order. It represented the gods’ last and greatest hope against the overwhelming forces of chaos that threatened all of creation. The Rod of Law turned the tide of the Dawn War. In the climactic battle that followed, it was used to strike down Miska the Wolf- Spider himself, banishing the Prince of Demons to an unknown plane forever.
The Rod of Law itself was shattered by the effort, becoming the artifact known as the Rod of Seven Parts, and scattered across the multiverse. The banishment of Miska shattered the will of the invaders. His armies retreated to the Elemental Chaos. The Queen of Chaos, her power diminished and will broken, dissipated back into the Abyss. With the Queen of Chaos fallen, her armies scattered, and the obyriths retreating into hiding, Demogorgon chose to act.
Crushing his rivals and gathering their followers, the demon lord asserted his claim as Prince of Demons. Having consolidated his power and gathered the demon lords’ combined forces, Demogorgon repelled the gods’ assault on the Abyss.
Asmodeus’s Fall & Rise
The self-proclaimed Prince of Demons had secured his dark throne, at least for now. Throughout the Dawn War, Asmodeus served as a general and the most powerful warrior exarch in the army of a deity. A deity of law and good who ruled the realm of Baator. The deity’s name is lost now, for Asmodeus has later used his magic and influence to make sure that the original god of Baator is remembered only as “He Who Was”. Asmodeus was brilliant and utterly effective, but his methods grew increasingly brutal.
After yet another massacre of innocence alongside enemies, there came a falling out between the great general and his divine master. Asmodeus warned his master that relieving him of his duties would prove his undoing, but He Who Was was resolute. In one stroke, the realm’s greatest general and his army were exiled. But Asmodeus did not perish as He Who Was was soft and merciful.
Instead, he suffered, broken in mind and body, on the fields of Avernus. Perhaps He Who Was believed Asmodeus would regret his pride. Asmodeus’s pride was greater than his guilt, however. He and his followers grew into their broken new forms of devils, planning revenge against He Who Was, who had forgotten about their sacrifices during the Dawn War. In the aftermath of Miska’s failure, the obyrith Pazuzu slipped secretly from the Abyss to approach Asmodeus, plying the fallen general with flattery and lamented about the gods’ ingratitude toward him. A seed of vanity and arrogance took root within Asmodeus, fanned by Pazuzu’s words. The fallen general began to believe himself more righteous than the deity he once served.
And then the whispers of the Abyss reached him. Asmodeus sought out the shard of evil in the Abyss. Following its whispers into the Blood Rift’s incalculable depths, he stole away a sliver of the shard. From it, Asmodeus forged a ruby-tipped rod of incredible power. Asmodeus waited till the moment in the Dawn War when the gods appeared to be losing. He Who Was had no stomach for war, had exiled his greatest general, and seemed destined to lead all the gods to ruin.
Choosing his moment with strategic precision, Asmodeus led an invasion of the Astral Sea, then slayed his divine master in battle with his scepter of absolute evil. With his dying breath, He Who Was unleashed a curse that trapped Asmodeus and all of his followers in Baator forever. Most gods cursed Asmodeus as a traitor, but many understood he had removed a leader whose failures seemed destined to doom them all. Some began bargaining with the Devil Lord, soliciting his military aid in the Dawn War.
The gods did not trust Asmodeus enough to release him from Baator, which would imbue him with the full divine power of the slain He Who Was. But Asmodeus claimed that he, and only he, could use that power to win the Dawn War for the gods. As a solution, the gods forged a pact of alliance with Asmodeus. Asmodeus was granted his former master’s divine power temporarily, until the primordials were vanquished. Asmodeus assured them he would quickly destroy the primordial threat, then give up his borrowed power.
The Pact Primeval
The gods then turned to their great project, the creation of mortals and beautiful worlds for their favored beings. These realms in the Material Planes bloomed with life and wonder. But then the demons invaded these new worlds. Asmodeus’s warbands were called upon to stop them. The voracious demons were no easier to fight on the Material Plane, but the devils generally succeeded in driving them back. The gods created barriers to keep the demons contained. They raised mountain ranges, covered entrances with glaciers, and buried demon portals under vast oceans, believing the threat had been contained.
But the gods made a horrifying discovery. The mortals were tearing down the barriers, scaling mountains, crossing glaciers, exploring oceans. The released demons ran riot, destroying one world after another. The gods wailed and lamented at a loss for how to prevent their creations from releasing the demons time and again, until Asmodeus came to them with the answer.
“Your mortals are taking these actions because you gave them minds of their own. They are curious creatures, these mortals, and the demons have promised them freedom. You might create more worlds and more mortals to people them, but I promise you the same folly will recur eternally. I have the solution that eludes you, one that will allow your precious mortals to retain the free will you have so beneficently given them. Your law is one of voluntary obedience, but what happens when they disobey you?
There can be no law without punishment. I have invented this item for you as the ultimate weapon of law. When laws are broken, the wrongdoers must be made to suffer as a warning to others. Thus, mortals can choose between the paradise of rightful action and the torment of wickedness. A few will suffer punishment so that the majority can see the consequences of law-breaking.” The gods were disquieted by this pronouncement, but as usual they could find no flaw in Asmodeus’s logic.
Thus, the gods signed another pact with Asmodeus. Known as the Pact Primeval, the documents specified the rules for the transmission of wicked souls. And in exchange, Asmodeus’s armies could draw power from those souls to battle the invading demons of the Abyss.
Deals with Devils
The gods handed down their new laws and sent clerics to announce that sin would be punished with torment. They were pleased, truly believing everyone would obey, and no one would actually require punishment. Years passed before the gods noticed an alarming drop in souls reaching their heavens. Conferring with their clergy, they realized that devils were corrupting mortals and ensuring their damnation by turning them toward evil. A divine delegation arrived at Baator to demand answers and found that the once featureless plane had been transformed into nine tiers of monstrous horror and torment, filled with countless screaming souls.
Within the Nine Hells, the gods saw countless souls writhing in pain, then watched as those souls were transformed, first into crawling mindless monsters and eventually into an army of powerful, war-ready devils. Asmodeus met their outrage with calm confidence, reminding them of the terms of the Pact Primeval. “You granted us the power to harvest souls. To gird our might for the task you set before us, we naturally had to find ways to improve our yield.”
The Blood War
Asmodeus has ruled the Nine Hells ever since. Millenia later, having become a deity in his own right, he still hungered to seize an even greater fragment of the shard of evil from the Abyss. As the conflict escalated, demons poured onto the hellish plains of Avernus in a bid to invade the Material Planes, only to be driven back by the devils time and again. This conflict became known as the Blood War. For untold millennia, the conflict spread throughout the multiverse, with demons and devils destroying each other across the planes.
The Blood War rages on with no end in sight, the fate of all creation hanging in the balance.
