James: Abyssal Attitude
Freeman: Getting’ Rifty with It
Reading List: See Website
Pathfinder Lore
· The most powerful of the Qlippoth are immensely ancient, and quasi-deities unto themselves.
· Very few Qlippoth lords exist compared to the height of their glory. And many more than just demons have opposed them. Archdevils, Empyreal Lords, and full-on deities within the Great Beyond have taken offense to their existence and wats. Thus they have been slowly been destroyed over eons.
· Those who remain are thought to either mere shades of the true original Qlippoth Lord power, or extremely powerful and cunning to have hid their truest natures and plans.
· Many Qlippoth Lords have even accepted Sin in order to trade their low-tier status into that of a powerful Demon Lord. The power they gain is considerable and what they lose is nothing more than the shaky alliances with weakened Qlippoth. (How traitorous!)
Among the Qlippoth Lords to have accept Sin and transform are:
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Cyth-V’Sug, Prince of the Blasted Heath (1 & 2)
Title:Demon Lord of Fungus and Parasites, and Lord of Filth and Pollution
Realm: Jeharlu, a single writhing colony of parasitic fungus, bigger than a planet and suspended within a carven by white filaments that can be used to enter and corrupt other planes and draw them into itself.
· It is filled with deformed fungal dragons, giant worms, mouldering shambling mounds, and all kinds of demons.
Description: A misshapen and monstrous
Lore: Older than most of the Demon Lords in Rifts, he was spawned by the ancient Oaur-Ooung, who was mother of vast Qlippoth hordes.
· He originally wanted to stay out of the war when the Demons first spawned. So he hid away in a dark corner of the Rifts and slew any demons that came near.
· He eventually discovered that the demons were worshipped by certain mortals, and “sent a feeler” into the Universe, finding unanswered desperate pleas. He responded, and came to feel the mortal emotion of Desire.
· He was still stuck in the Qlippoth dominions of the Rifts, but desired his original home and for demon blood. Worship made him stronger and transformed him. And when the other Qlippoth Lords found out what he was doing, and what was happening to him, they threatened to destroy him. So he ran.
· He still hated demons, and desired vengeance as well, but his continued demand for sacrifices to make him stronger fed Sin into him, and he slowly became a Demon Lord.
· Despite being a full-fledged Demon Lord, his ultimate goal is still to destroy the material plane and cut off the growth of all demons. Even ifit means his own ultimate destruction.
· The famous Demon Lord Treerazer is one of Cyth-V’sug’s greatest minions. But Treerazer has currently made home on the Material Plane after failing a coup against its master. (Cyth-V’Sug has curiously yet to strike back at the betrayal.)
Bonus – Obedience (1e):
Dagon, the Shadow in the Sea (3)
Titles: Shadow Lord of the Sea, and Demon Lord of the Sea and Sea Monsters
Realm: Ugothanok the Sunken city within Ishiar, the great underwater realm. Filled with aquatic horrors and dark, unlit depths.
· Inhabitants include the turtle/crab monstrosity known as a Tojanida (4), the reptilian fiends called Hezrou (5) and a race of fiendish and half-fiend humans that war over its surface, constantly battling and committing cruel acts to try and impress Dagon
· The Ishiar realm is one of the largest, and encompasses many demonic subrealms and even feeds into the River Styx itself.It is also used to infest mortal oceans and seas with dangerous creatures, to sow chaos.
Description: A somewhat alien, not-quite eel, not-quite fish, no-quite octopus.
Lore: Before accepting Sin, Dagon was said to be nothing more than a mindless, ravenous sea monster that ate everything in its path. Becoming a Demon Lord through the consumption of many demons, which granted him intelligence and sentience.
· He is aware of what eh used to be, but does not with to return to his Qlippoth state. He revels in the worship he gets on the Material Plane.
· While holding no ill will against the Qlippoths, he does not permit them to enter his realm either.
· He sends his offspring to the Material plane oceans to breed with other creatures and create monstrosities.
· And cults that worship him usually do so in secret, hiding behind the guise of worshipping another deity. Often they secretly mingle and breed with creatures like sahuagin, boggards, and other monstrous aquatic creatures.
· Faith in Dagon often enough gets mixed into worship of the Great Old Ones (especially underwatder dwelling Deep Ones), despite having no real association. And the name “Dagon” is sometimes used as an honorific for powerful elder deep ones, which he finds amusing and takes as a compliment.
· He is said to have defeated the great kraken Kaktora, which created the Devilfish (6) that haunt Golarion oceans to this day
Bonus – Obedience (1e):
Jubilex, the Facless Lord (7)
Titles: Lord of Sloth, and Demon Lord of Poison and Ooze
Realm: Undersump, a system of abyssal sewers that run under the other abyssal realms in a maze of tunnels and connect to the River Styx.
· Due to a lack of care for its own realm, many parts of Undersump are claimed by others, and it is often used as a secret passage between abyssal realms.
· Some have posited that the further reaches of the tunnels go as far as connecting to Dis in the Hells, or dumps poison and filth straight into the Maelstrom.
Description: Jubliex is a massive, formless green ooze with streaks of black tar and innumerable blood red eyes staring out in every direction.
· The very air around him is toxic and acidic, melting flesh and bone on top of the overwhelming stench.
Lore: A near-mindless Qlippoth Lord, Jubilex simply hunted demons that entered its sewers and eventually retained enough sinful essence to become a Demon, gaining a basic amount of intelligence.
· When it digested a now long-forgotten Demon Lord of Tunnels and Poison, it became a Demon Lord in its place.
· Omox (8), (Slime Demons) are known to worship it, as well the powerful drow lords of House Tracinoa (Which I think is focused on Alchemy).
· It is worshipped most commonly by drow who regard it as a patron of toxins and poisons, and a rival of sorts to the Demon Lord Haagenti
· But it’s less about worship and a bit more about “tapping a source or power”.
· Despite not caring for its worshippers, it happily takes sacrifces to absorb and dissolve.
· His position of Lord of Poison is well established thanks to his own toxins famously affecting those normally immune any and all poisons.
· Like any Demon Lord, Jubilex is known for its cruelties. Such as extracting blood and tears from a victim, putting the malevolent and destructive nature of an ooze into it and then replacing it into victim so it can painfully consume and burn them from the inside out.
Bonus – Obedience (1e):
Mazmezz, the Creeping Queen (9)
Titles: Lord of Vermin, Demon Lord of Vermin and Bindings
Realm: Khavak-Vog, a vermin-infested hive populated by Bebilith, spider-esque creatures whom she created to hunt demons before becoming a Demon Lord.
Lore: When mortals started to worship her she found she enjoyed the attention. When she discovered her fellow Qlippoth Lords planned to kill all potential sinners, she went traitor.
· She cares not that her Bebliths (10) continue to hunt demons, she only cares for her mortal worship.
· While worship of her is not widespread, the most common are Darklands drow (especially the powerful vermin lords of House Moivas) and fleshwarped driders and even surface-dwelling web lurkers.
· Jorogumo famously avoid worshiping Mazmezz, seeing her as a representation of brutality, mindlessness and primal destruction. Which they consider an afront to how the view the spider: elegant and beautiful.
· Jorogumo who do turn to worship her tend to grow in a malformed way, and become slovenly terrors, considered by their sisters eccentric at best, and something dangerous to be put down at worst.
· Regardless, she loves being worshiped, but does little for her followers. Almost nothing in fact. The only time she somewhat intervenes is when there is threat of conversion to something else. She invests a great amount of power to a select few inquisitors (usually drow), which are called the Sisters of Silk.
· These inquisitors wear distinctive black and white webbed armour and carry spider-infested nets. They hunt down and persecute heretics, deserters and especially those who try to convert to elsewhere.
· When caught they are removed from all known society, dragged through hidden portals to deep depths, and tortured and tormented for years or even centuries.
· These Sisters of Silk consider becoming a Drider a great honour, so they never transform a heretic. Instead they hope one day Mazmezz will turn them into one. Though she rarely does.
Description: She is monstrously alien, as one of the oldest Qlippoths her for is described as having “no trace of sanity”.
· A horrible tangle of insectoid legs, claws, pincers, and spinnerets all extending from a writhing hairy mass at her center. Her mouth is a pit of thrashing spider-like fangs and to top it all off, she can cover herself in a special webbing to appear as anything she wants (typically choosing a beautiful woman or female drider)
Bonus – Obedience (1e):
Yhidothrus, the Ravager Worm (11)
Titles: Lord of Time
Realm: The Spiral Path, a unique labyrinthine tunnel realm that spans and cuts through the Outer Sphere, and touches nearly every other Outer Rifts, and may even reach into other planes. The deeper you go into these tunnels, the demon population recedes as the Qlippoths’ rise.
Description: A black-skinned worm with a maw filled with teeth. Its tail is impossible to describe, because those who have seen it are immediately driven mad.
· These mad ramblings describe that Yhidothrus grows more ancient the longer you travel along the length of its body and that the tail is rooted deep within the Qlippoth-ruled parts of the Outer Rifts/Abyss. A place where the very ideas of demons and sin have yet to exist.
Lore: Some claim Yhidothrus is still a Qlippoth Lord at his tail end, and his immense size could encircle the great beyond itself.
· Even more terrifying is the idea that Yhidothrus is nothing more than the tongue of something incomprehensibly vast in size.
· With a focus on the negative aspects of time, such as aging and entropy.
· Worshipers are often those obsessed with avoiding such things and desperately turn to demon worship to halt it.
· Some go as far as becoming a lich, which then appear more worm-eaten and moist than your average lich.
· Other might become a Worm that Walks
Bonus – Obedience (1e):
Zevgavizeb, the Glutton in the Dark (12)
Titles: Beast of Gluttondark, Sun-Devourer, God of the Troglodytes, Lord of Reptiles, and Troglodyte God.
Realm: Zevgessos, is the most central and largest of the planet-sized caverns within the realm of Gluttondark, one of the deepest and largest realms within the Outer Rifts.
· It is made of hollow, horror-like caverns with rivers, jungles, mountains, seas, swamps, you name it.
· Gravity pulls away from the center of the near-spherical caverns.
· Strange-coloured suns pulse between light and dark their centers.
· Dinosaurs, sea-monsters, batlike monstrosities and many more exist here, along with nations of fiendish troglodytes.
· His personal lair is on a jungle moon floating in the center of the largest cavern known as the Verdant Moon
Description: He is a dragon-sized beast that is part Bat, part Reptile, and part Worm.
· He carries a horrific stench that can permanent nauseate anyone who smells him, and his occult powers can tear creatures apart with a single thought.
· His screams can carry through the entire Outer Rifts, whether he is rampaging or simply sleeping.
Lore: He encourages his fiendish followers to war within these caverns in order to cull the weak and only have the strongest for his armies.
· The caverns may be planet sized, but the journey between them is a much shorter journey. Meaning neighbouring caverns are what make up warring factions and armies.
· He became a Demon Lord along with other Qlipporth Lords when a group of proteans known as the Wyrms of Paradox, purposely transformed Qlippoths into Demons in order to weaken the Qlippoths and distract from the Maelstrom springing the current reality into existence.
· Dates back to the primordial days of the Great Beyond, and his disinterest in the Great Beyond rivals that of Dagon’s.
· He will occasionally appear within one of the caverns, devour all life and then the sun inside explodes to turn everything to ash. And over time the Outer Rifts heal and renew the area to repeat the process.
· This is part of the Troglodyte beliefs in their own wars. They believe the slaughter of countless others will sate Zevgavizeb and prevent him from coming for their own realm and reap completely destruction.
· It’s worth noting that the Troglodytes we are talking about are much different than those you might find nearer the surface on Golarion or some such (referred to as Xulgath). They are much more powerful and more akin to their “psychically awakened” ancestors.
· Troglodytes being his primary worshipers, it’s not at all unheard to see Morlocks or Lizardfolk among the ranks as well. And even Saurians who abandon the more common druidic Green Faith, seeing divinity in destructions rather than nature.
· This last one can be especially dangerous thanks their skills in training dinosaurs as battle-ready warbeasts or “living siege engines”. (Also, they are dinosaur humanoids that start at size Huge….). Fortunately, they suffer greatly from infighting and constant opposition of other saurian tribes, which keeps them in check.
Bonus Image (13)
Bonus – Obedience (1e):