Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ChaosVirus 09-03-07, 01:10 PM	Just curious, what are the best sources on Arcanaloth's? Also is there a version which can be used as a playable charecter, or would the LA be to high? Also another little question, my group is doing a ravenloft campaign, now I have heard of fiends being trapped in the dread planes before, but would a Arcanaloth be to smart to fall for the machinations of the dark powers?
The Serge7 09-03-07, 01:46 PM	Also another little question, my group is doing a ravenloft campaign, now I have heard of fiends being trapped in the dread planes before, but would a Arcanaloth be to smart to fall for the machinations of the dark powers? No. At least in 2ed, the only known daemon trapped in the Demiplane of Dread was an arcanoloth.
Ruy 09-03-07, 05:50 PM	Would this daemon happen to be Inajira? On a related note, does anyone have more information on Inajira? Shemmy, perhaps?
Shemeska the Marauder 09-03-07, 10:31 PM	Just curious, what are the best sources on Arcanaloth's? Also is there a version which can be used as a playable charecter, or would the LA be to high? Also another little question, my group is doing a ravenloft campaign, now I have heard of fiends being trapped in the dread planes before, but would a Arcanaloth be to smart to fall for the machinations of the dark powers? Details on arcanaloths: 2e Planescape Monstrous Compendium - their 2e monster writeup 2e Faces of Evil: The Fiends - details on their caste and role within 'loth society Dungeon 149 - updated 3.5 stats for the arcanaloth 2e Uncaged: Faces of Sigil - writeups of A'kin the Friendly Fiend, and my board namesake the Marauder, two memorable arcanaloths 2e Roots of Evil - Ravenloft adventure featuring the arcanaloth Inajira 3e Ravenloft Gazetteer I - 3e writeup of Inajira I've also written up a metric ton of stuff involving 'loths that has featured a number of arcanaloths. See the link in my .sig for my first storyhour, which has a cabal of arcanaloths as one of the primary antagonists, and an arcanaloth of two also appear in my second storyhour. Plus, I had a story about one particular arcanaloth, Larsdana ap Neut, that appeared in Knowledge Arcana #5 here on wizards.com. As for what stories featured arcanaloths that I've written, if you're curious I can dig together the relevant links.
ChaosVirus 09-04-07, 06:27 AM	Thanks for the info shemmie, also yes those links to those stories would be greatly apprieciated =)
Deacon Liadon 09-04-07, 10:21 AM	To save Shemmy from having to quote himself yet again, the following is one of the best pieces of fluff I feel he's written on Yugoloths/Arcanoloths: The light flickered, like a wind had blown across the wicks, and I looked up into the fading luminescence of a gate. It was subtle and quick, like a great blue and winking eye, there across the circle from me. And I was not alone. A single figure stood just within the circle's boundary. Luck might have smiled upon me then, but the circle was specific, far too specific to bind anything but an Amnizu, it might have even failed to hold other devils of that type except for Izacar himself. A single figure swathed in fine robes, but what hangs in my mind still was a play of opposites that it presented before he even approached and I saw his face. A bestial snarl and the soft swish of silk against silk, the odor of brimstone and the scent of perfume, the wet sound of lips parting in a smile and then a tongue tasting the air like a serpent preparing the strike. The figure strode into the light, moving forwards with an elegant, arrogant swagger before rapping its knuckles against the inside membrane of the binding circle’s wards, knocking upon it like an arcane door, sending ripples across its surface. “Greetings and well met.” The fiend said, stepping into the light of the candles. He was dressed in black robes trimmed with blue silk, a wizard with the head of a maned wolf, clawed hands clasped together at his waist. A well-dressed fiend is still a fiend though, even if he was smiling rather than screaming for blood, even if his claws were polished and engraved, and even if his long mane of ruddy-gray fur was brushed and pulled back, braided together into an elaborate knot with golden wire at his shoulders. The mortal is confusing two separate meetings here with Y’leris, a brief, first meeting alone and a later meeting with many more wizards, and a few more ‘loths present. “Who are you?” I demanded, standing to my feet and pointing a wand at the fiend’s chest. “Y’leris.” He answered. “Though I suppose if you wish to have my full title, that would be Y’leris Ap Gehinnom, 34th scribe of the Abscess of the Hollow Heart. No need to be so formal though, and besides, I’m here with your best interests in mind.” “And I could banish you in a heartbeat.” I replied, not returning his smile. “Tsk tsk tsk…” He chided whimsically. “That would be rash I think, given the predicament you find yourselves in. And one that…” The fiend trailed off to look down at the circle, moving one of his feet and reading the runes carved into the layer of wax that composed the outermost layer of the wards. “And one that Izacar the Bitter probably couldn’t help you with anyways, assuming he wasn’t bound by overriding agreements to not speak with you.” I narrowed my eyes and stared at him. He was right, and he knew it as he grinned. “You’re in a bit of an untenable position,” He said. “But I can help you. My clients that I represent can help you greatly. Shall we talk?” “What exactly are you?” “I am Yugoloth, and we, my kind, are called arcanaloth.” I knew what that implied, but I’d had no firsthand experience with his caste, so I let him explain himself. "We are middlemen, of a sort." The arcanaloth said. "We are involved in the conflict between Tanar'ri and Baatezu, yes, but not in so straightforward a way, and not for either side in particular. Self interest, enlightened or not, is what defines us in many ways." He paused, clasped his hands and stepped forwards into our midst, robes swishing and claws clicking staccato on the stone floor. "We, myself, my clients, we wish to offer you our services." "Who do you serve?" "Interesting question that is..." He said, holding up a clawed index finger and smirking. "In general, or specifically in this case?" "Yes." "In general, myself, as that's all that matters really." And from his perspective he is certainly right. That is his -truth-, that his own self-importance is the overriding factor within the hostile reality he is part of. Everything exists to be taken, used, given pain for his enjoyment simply because he wishes to do so and he can. Truth is that, and on some level it is also a fact, but only by ignorance of the larger whole of universal Evil. He is not ignorant of it though, he embraces it in many ways to give you my -truth-, a self-defining self-delusion, a liar’s lie to himself, a child of the Waste to the end. We are pieces, self-absorbed extensions of the godhead. "And now, in this case, in specific?" He gave a languid smile and paused for dramatic effect, overly dramatic effect. "I am Yugoloth, but in this case I serve as agent and painted little temple ***** to Hethradia, Prince of Demons. My singular/dualistic master would increase his great prestige and personal power by blunting the Baatezu here on this world.” And give itself purpose, give itself focus, give itself clarity amidst the madness and struggle against his self, his other self, a literal house divided. A different creature entirely, but the struggle outwards placates and forestalls the struggle inwards, a similar thing to the little 'loth's focus through dissolution, importance through absence, but Demogorgon has a different Truth "What is the price?" "And therein lies my importance here. Let us talk and discuss your situation and salvation, shall we?" Of course we paid too much, far too much, but as he’d said, our position was rather untenable. We were lost without some form of outside help, and that help was being offered up to us on a silver platter, dressed to our liking, if only we would sign on the proffered page of screaming, bleeding parchment. Deeds, abstinence from the calling and binding of Baatezu for a period of decades, the banning of certain faiths, the oppression of others, the souls of half of those in our forces who fell during the coming slaughter. The terms were dictated in part, and half of them were offered up by our own people who were giving up things that meant nothing to them compared to their own survival, and their own continuance of power and prosperity. The hope of salvation had turned us to greed, and greed had turned us to damning ourselves. I should have banished the fiend in the first place, but he would have just gone to another one of my peers, and they would have committed my sin themselves, taking his hand and welcoming him in to seduce us with words, to deliver us into the hands of his masters. And in the end, we offered them more than they had been asking. A here's a couple of links: Planewalker Stats (http://www.planewalker.com/entry.php?intEntryID=243) Planewalker Encyclopedia Entry (http://www.planewalker.com/encyclopedia/encyclopedia.php?intEntryID=367) The Heart of Perdition, one of Shemmy's pieces of fiction (http://www.planewalker.com/entry.php?intEntryID=9669) KA 5 (http://wizo.wizards.com/ka/KnowledgeArcana05.pdf) Shemmy in 3.5 (http://www.planewalker.com/entry.php?intEntryID=2258)
Shemeska the Marauder 09-04-07, 08:06 PM	I've got more excerpts of stuff that I feel really captures their flavor, but unfortunately I'd get banned in a heartbeat for the language and/or content of some of them if I pasted them here directly unfiltered. I don't water them down if the writing calls for it, which doesn't lend itself well to a PG-13 board like this. I've edited out a line or two in the two bits below, but I apologize to the mods if I accidentally missed something. Azcajal ap Shelloth stood and looked out across the Waste from his vantage point above Oinos, three miles up on a balcony carved from the tower of his ultroloth master. The arcanaloth's hands gripped the railing with such intensity that his knuckles were white and his claws curved back to the point of cutting into his palms. He was not afraid of falling from that height, nor was he pensive. No, he was terrified. Time ticked by with only the wind in his face as a reminder of the passage of a commodity he treasured in his present state even more than he ever had. An immortal being, he suddenly felt as a mortal must when confronted with their own mortality, realizing that their mayfly lives would shortly end. Azcajal felt old, he felt mortal, firmly aware of the insignificance of his own existence, and he had felt that way for an hour; ever since he had been summoned by his master and escorted to speak to his. He had been given a task. Already twitching from the periodic gusts of wind that whipped erratic at that altitude, one of the 'loth's ears canted and swiveled at the sound of approaching footsteps. As his master had taken him, so too would he escort another in the same capacity, but blessedly this time he... Azcajal shuddered and pushed the thoughts from his mind. He at least would survive, but as for the fiend who now approached, that was a question whose answer he did not care to know. The arcanaloth's nose inhaled reflexively and his tongue tasted the air like a serpent as his mind reached out to do the same to the dull but promising psyche behind him. Without turning his head, without betraying the fear and dread in his eyes, he already knew the identity of the other fiend. It was a nycaloth, Narsaleth the Brooding, a relatively young and ambitious fiend who he had previously marked as being potentially worthy of promotion to arcanaloth. Azcajal had followed and tracked the progress of the other fiend till eventually he had met with him, tested him, and agreed to sponsor his trial before their mutual ultroloth masters. The wolf-headed arcanaloth frowned and held up his hands, letting their wounds heal before turning to face the nycaloth. Narsaleth had waited months to learn how the ultroloths had taken his bid for promotion, if they would consider him or not, and the lesser fiend likely believed that the purpose for his summoning would be news on that front. Twice his size, the nycaloth nonetheless knelt and looked up at him, spreading his wings and putting one pair of hands on the floor and holding the other up in a sign of plaintive submission. "What did they say?" Narsaleth's eyes were anxious, pleading, even though he otherwise held his breath. His promotion was at stake. He was at the cusp of advancement, surely he was. "I..." Looking down at him, Azcajal seemed to pause before answering, it was awkward. Could they have denied his petition even before judgment? "My advocacy of you has been taken into consideration." That was a start. It was not a negative. But the answer was evasive, the arcanoloth had minced his words and twisted them together, but he hadn't actually answered the question. "Yes... but what did they say?" Narseleth asked a second time, hoping for a clarification. "You will be judged." Azcajal said. "Today." The words struck the nycaloth like a hammer blow and Narsaleth shook in anticipation. Tiny shudders, nervous jitters, ran down the length of his wings and the nail beds beneath his claws ached as the muscles in his hands unconsciously tensed and relaxed. The higher fiend bade him to stand, a perfunctory gesture that foreshadowed their approaching equal status in terms of caste. At least that was the nycaloth's impression. "However I will not be present with you during your judgment." Azcajal said, drawing his robes together and crossing his arms. "...things are going be... altered from their normal progression." What? Azcajal was his sponsor. If he failed, then his life would be forsaken as well, and Oinoloth knew that the spires of Khin-Oin still dripped with blood as it was. Why was the protocol of advancement being altered? The arcanaloth looked directly at him, not sounding weary, but proud, sympathetic even. "You will be judged, that is your honor. Follow me and I will bring you to the place where you will be questioned, your worth determined, and your purity ascertained." Leaving Narsaleth filled with uneasy pride, Azcajal drifted past his protégé and off of the balcony, back into the darkness of Khin-Oin, motioning for the nycaloth to follow. As they departed, the wind whistling off of the empty ramparts seemed to snicker. *** There was the great tumult of the spawning pools as they descended, a roar of flowing, draining liquid, a silky soft and heavy sound like bubbling syrup or rendering fat, punctuated by the birthing cries of newborn mezzoloths. It was the place in which both Azcajal and Narsaleth had both first clawed their way from nothingness, nonexistence, and then become beings, individuals distinct from the Waste. Instinctively they felt the thrum of the place in their bones, in their blood, and memories resurfaced: their first breaths, their first step, their first scream, first pain, first act of drawing blood and taking the life of the first thing they encountered, where they became the first stage of what they had become. With perverse nostalgia fresh upon their minds, both 'loths knew that those same spawning pools had seen a major increase in activity in recent weeks, though the output of mezzoloths had only seen a marginal increase. Rumors that filtered down to the nycaloth and were recorded by the arcanaloth said that a great many ultroloths and the higher tiers of arcanaloth researchers from Gehenna and Carceri had visited the lowest levels of Khin-Oin. But to what purpose they could only speculate. Only briefly did the two of them cross over those caverns and vaults. A hundred yards and they passed beyond them by, though they did pause to take in the sight, if but for a moment. Massive by any measure, they were filled with newborn mezzoloths crawling and feeding upon one another, filled with others yet only half formed, pools and engines, blood and pain, unending screams, and the ossified viscera of a dead god like a cradle for its killers' young. Eventually though, and without a word spoken between them, they both arrived at the door, a simple thing of petrified bone. "We have arrived." Azcajal stated. Narsaleth blinked. Somehow he had expected more, something grander. Surely a circle of Ultroloths could not be expected to convene in the depths and judge him in such a paltry, banal chamber. They were better than that, and he deserved more. He glanced down at his patron, had he lied? Did he seek to betray him for some slight? The arcanaloth motioned with his hand towards the door. "Step inside." He instructed. "Be judged. Be cleansed. Be purified." Narsaleth hesitated. If his patron was not deceiving him, he should not show temerity in the face of promotion, he would best show his worth by grasping it. But of course perhaps a deception here, now, that could conceivably be a part of his trial, a part of his judgment and their masters could be watching now for any signs of weakness on his part. A middle ground between blind faith and foolish disregard would serve him best. He reached out to touch the door, but turned to Azcajal first. "Why will you not accompany me?" The arcanaloth bowed his head and spread his hands. "I was told to remain outside." "Why?" Narsaleth asked. "Why so many changes to the trial?" A momentary swell of pride surged through Azcajal. His protégé doubted him, expected duplicity, felt a hunger for answers, for secrets... he was ready for promotion. That pride let him suppress his own worry and maintain his composure. "Because this is no longer the Khin-Oin of Mydianchlarus." He said. "We are no longer ruled by Anthraxus, nor does the General of Gehenna dictate upon our race from afar. We are living in a new age. You are the child of a new era. Things have changed and they will never again be the same. Do you understand this? This is why things are different." Because He has made them different. Because He wishes them to be so. Because He spoke to me. Azcajal pushed that from his mind and continued. "But you would not be here if I did not suspect that somewhere in your heart you knew this, or at least suspected this. You will be found worthy. I would not jeopardize myself otherwise. My selfishness is your gain. I believe that you are worthy, but beyond that door... we shall see." Narsaleth took in his sponsor's words and nodded. It frightened him and uplifted him at once. There was a place for him, a position and rank prepared for him; he would seize it, make it his, take his place among the elect. "Yes. I understand." The door opened and Narsaleth slipped inside, headstrong and feeling worthy, his elevation imminent. The arcanaloth did not follow, he could not even look, in fact he turned away, averting his gaze and holding his breath, trembling unconsciously. The door closed with a hiss, and Azcajal exhaled with one of his own, his knuckles white as he removed his hand from door's handle. "I will not accompany you because I am not worthy." He whispered to himself, his voice beginning to break like the first lines of a self-abusive mantra. He slumped down and clutched his head, weeping and shaking. "And also because I am terrified." *** Narsaleth entered the chamber expecting to bow before the gaze and burning minds of a council of Ultroloths. But as he stepped into the gloom he saw nothing before all was swallowed by shadow, the momentary light from the corridor betraying only an empty floor devoid of all but dust. The light was fading and his shadow stretched out before him, racing across the chamber to meet the embrace of the deepest dark. Narsaleth turned to look as the door began to shut, expecting to see it drift with gravity, or perhaps a last glimpse of his mentor's hand. But no, the door simply seemed to swing on its own accord. His eyes averted momentarily, the nycaloth never saw the dust of the floor twitch and move, showing the articulated lines of thousands of words traced in their medium. Nor did the fiend see the darkness ripple and move where his own figure painted in black stretched and touched them. He never saw the multitude of fingers reaching out to caress and paw at his shadow though. He never saw them, he only felt a cold chill and the thrill of apprehension when his shadow was pulled, writhing and contorting, by those hands into the curtain of pitch. But that was the space of split second, and then the door closed behind him with a whisper and a click of bone on bone, leaving the only light in the chamber a thin sliver from underneath the door's margin. A second more and then it was snuffed completely and he was alone. All was darkness. Narsaleth’s eyes adjusted, or tried to adjust. His pupil’s dilated and his retinas slipped from their normal spectrum to something unnatural, the quasi-magical sight that would normally allow him to see in anything but the most profound magical darkness. He expected to see the breadth of the chamber, to see the council of Ultroloths who would test him, but the gloom refused to retreat beyond a certain depth, and he saw nothing. “I am here.” He said, addressing his unseen masters. “I am ready.” Nothing. All was silent. The darkness gave no reply, but Narsaleth waited and listened anyways. Somewhere beyond the range of his vision he expected his ultroloth judges lurked and observed, taking cues on his fitness before they even whispered a response. But there was no circle of ultroloths. There was only the darkness, and the darkness had already made its judgment before the nycaloth had stepped through the door and into its presence. *clatter* A metallic object landed at Narsaleth's feet, sliding out of the gloom and across the floor, coming to a rest only a few inches away from him. The fiend looked down and tilted his head as he recognized the object for what it was: a knife, a dagger, a blade, a shard of obsidian. The fiend looked at the blade and waited, though for what he wasn’t entirely certain. The obsidian glittered, jewel-like in the faint circle of dim illumination where the ‘loth’s eyes managed to peel back the otherwise complete gloom. Surely the ultroloths who would judge him would expect him to wait for their commands; that was the proper role, the proper protocol, orthodoxy. "Pick it up." The nycaloth instinctively knelt at the command and reached for the blade, but still his eyes searched the darkness for the speaker. And that was the disturbing fact of it all, that there had been a speaker in the first place. Ultroloths had no mouths. They did not speak except with their minds, but his ears had clearly keened to an audible voice, and he had obeyed it. And oddly as well, he’d begun to kneel before he’d even registered the sound in his ears. Commanding, seductive, hypnotic; a succinct trio. One of Narsaleth's hands curled around the blade's hilt and he stood back up, still scanning the darkness. The voice spoke again, this time echoing in his head as well as his ears. "What is the object in your hands?" The nycaloth turned the blade over in his hands. Ragged and unbalanced, it was not a blade that was ever intended for use in a battle. Runes in high yugoloth were etched into the glass, weaving in decorative and poetic spirals across its entire length, while deeper still, beneath the black mirrored surface, even more glyphs hung suspended like bubbles; deadly little insects with promises sealed upon their lips in their tomb of jet amber. "An obsidian blade." Narsaleth replied. “A work of art and a tool at the same time.” "A very special type of blade yes. What about such things do you know?" Narsaleth though for a moment, paused and then gave his reply. "It is the object of a nycaloth's ascendancy to arcanaloth status. It is what I seek." "And is that so?" There was an amusement in the voice, a paternal tone, a hunger. "Yes. Yes I do." "You desire its caress?" Thoughts flooded into the nycaloth's mind, burning their way into his consciousness. For the briefest flicker of a moment he stood on Khalas as his heart was gutted from his chest, he felt the flicker of flame on his flayed skin still cold from shock and blood loss, he felt his bones hum as the sigils were carved into the soft plates at the ends of his long bones, and he begged for more as he choked and drowned on his own blood from the knife embedded through his neck. And then it was gone. A hundred thousand flickers and flashes of memories of promotions from the perspective of the promoted and from some other observer. "What you saw, is that what you want?" Narsaleth knelt on the floor, bracing himself with two arms even as the other two cradled the blade. His legs had buckled from the intensity of the visions but he'd held the knife like a mortal gripped to their soul or a priest to their faith. "Yes..." He whimpered, still tasting blood on his tongue from the visions like a physical afterimage. "Look at the blade and tell me about it. Feel it, understand it." The nycaloth nodded and traced first one finger and then two down the blunt edge, rounding the tip and pricking his flesh in the process. A single drop of blood welled from the wound and traced down tiny, cunningly crafted channels carved into the blade like little sanguine rivers. “It draws away my blood.” He said, watching that same blood fill the patterns and whorls of decorative glyphs. “The runes speak of purification, pain as a doorway to release, glorification of the self and submission to Evil. It’s poetic.” “Poetic?” “Yes, the words, the patterns. I never considered some of what they say, little word plays and hidden, double meanings.” Absorbed in the task, he ran his fingers over the razored edge of the blade, slicing deep, intentionally cutting his flesh simply to feel, and the pain felt different, the suffering was tinged with a spiritual aspect that it had never possessed before. It might have been the blade, it might have been his mindset at the moment, or it might have been that he was already being promoted, in mind if not yet in body. “You are already learning then. Good.” Narsaleth turned the blade and its glossy, mirrored surface caught a reflection at a distant angle. The reflection wavered and his ears heard the wet slip of lips parting over teeth. "Look up child." Obediently, the nycaloth look up and at his judge, the speaker whose voice filled his ears and mind. Teeth and eyes. That was what he saw, that was -all- he saw in the darkness, and he very nearly dropped the blade. Ivory white fangs, perfect and glistening with a sheen of spittle; a pair of reddish-pink eyes like burning souls suspended in ruby cages; they seemed to hover in the dark, suspended in a formless wash of darkness, not so much standing before him but surrounding him, encasing him, swallowing the light. A fraction of a second passed and in that moment the darkness seemed animate, swimming, writhing like some shapeless abomination... Narsaleth blinked and the trick of the light, for that was what it had to have been, resolved itself. The figure stepped forward and the darkness peeled back to reveal him, or perhaps the darkness congealed to form him, but regardless of that, the nycaloth's judge stood before him. Teeth parted as a tongue licked at a fang and tasted the air, crimson-pink eyes glittering and now distinct from the shadows, locked within the skull of an arcanaloth. The Oinoloth stood before him, physically present, physically manifest at his judgment. Narsaleth knew this, understood the incongruity of the situation, and intellectually understood the enormity of it all... but it never registered to him. He was already numb, already slipping into a state of expectant religious ecstasy to do anything but obey. The Ebon pointed to the obsidian blade. “Normally you would be slaughtered for touching that blade before you were ready.” The nycaloth stumbled to answer, but there was no need. “But I asked you to do so, I felt that you were ready, that you needed to learn from the past before embracing the future, and the blade is simply another aspect of that past. The knife you hold, it was the same blade used to promote Anthraxus, and the knife that he used on himself when he underwent his process of self-mutilation in order to ape his makers, attempting to ascend to something better on his own. He failed, in numerous ways, and of course I punished him for that impurity and that failure.” The Oinoloth stepped closer and held up his hands, displaying his claws. “That blade, if you had been judged by a council of Ultroloths and been found worthy, they would have flayed your skin from your muscle, then sliced the muscle from the bone, and carved into you like a block of marble to reflect your metaphysical essence, all before setting you into the furnaces of Gehenna, the pools that already today you have seen, or the reflective chasm in Carceri. Normally this process is long, lengthy, protracted, inefficient, rote, routine, archaic… The Oinoloth’s claws extended and shimmered ivory against his flesh and coat, glittering like scalpels in their own right, set against the darkness. “The process is long and protracted.” He repeated. “Unless of course I choose to expedite the process in my own fashion…” The nycaloth barely had time to register the archfiend’s meaning before the claws burrowed into his chest and clutched at his sternum, digging and twisted, slicing and carving skin from muscle and symbol to bone. In fact, the only reaction that Narsaleth made was to relax his arms at his side, to accept what came. Willingness was key. It might have taken a minute, an hour, a day… time lost its meaning to the nycaloth as his world became a blank haze of pained ecstasy and a blossom of darkness flooding his vision. Claws of liquid darkness slipped into flesh and ripped him open, forcing the transition and shedding the metaphysical cocoon of the nycaloth. Claws and fangs and septic mind, they lanced deeper than any blade, slipping through suddenly plastic and liquid flesh like a potter to clay, a sculptor freeing a statue embedded in its marble tomb; not creating so much as releasing. There was no blade, no invocations, no ritual, no runes, no furnace but the light from his eyes. Time passed and eventually the screams and pain ceased. All was silence. All was darkness. Blood dripped from claws and teeth, slicked and matted fur, and where the thrown off corpse of the nycaloth had come to rest it streaked the bone-white godflesh under their feet a shade of crimson. Narsaleth was dead and Narsaleth was reborn. Shaking and trembling, naked and slathered in his own blood like some perverse amniotic fluid, the newborn arcanaloth looked down at the corpse, his corpse; the ba staring at the sekhu. At the arcanaloth’s feet, the nycaloth husk was a mangled pile of flesh and viscera, but from it he had stepped like a moth from a cocoon, and though spattered with blood its face was unmistakably his own, and he smiled when he saw his new form reflected in the glazed and frozen eyes of the old. “I have given you what you wanted. Remade in body and spirit into what you desired. The flesh of the nycaloth, the lesser fiend, the impure fiend, that you were, you have shed and that is forever behind you. Welcome child to the next stage of your existence.” Left unsaid was a final line of the Ebon’s welcome, ‘But there is of course, something that I need of you.’ Impurity had been physically shed, and Narsaleth stumbled at the realization of his ascendancy even as the floodgates of his newly sculpted mind opened and touched him, kissed him with the birthright that Larsdana Ap Neut had tethered, millennia ago, to their kind in Gehenna. But in all of that knowledge, in the collective archive of their racial memory, the Ebon who stood silently behind him like a shadow, he was entirely absent. The Oinoloth might have been absent from that tide, but something was also seeping into Narsaleth’s mind like a slow trickle of oil atop the raging floodwaters of information, secrets and illumination. He knew him. Somehow he recognized him. He felt it in his bones and in his blood like a wave of cold sepsis. Numb with his increasing αποκαλυψις, his dawning revelation, the ‘loth turned around, looking for the Ebon like a pilgrim searching for their prophet, their icon, their saint. The Ebon was gone, but after turning a complete circle, the ‘loth stopped and gazed back at his own face, a reflection trapped in the surface of the obsidian dagger that he’d held and examined before his promotion. The blade hung suspended in the air and though he had not been standing there a moment before, the Oinoloth’s eyes and teeth shimmered in the reflection as well, disembodied in the darkness. “These blades are simply tools.” The Ebon’s voice whispered from out of the knife and in the arcanaloth’s ears. “They are artifacts and ephemera of a species grown corrupt and ignorant, content to accept a status quo blindly without any conception of their potential. The words of the faithless have accepted a gospel that has been handed to them and they do not question it. The yugoloths have become a false vacuum waiting for the pressure to collapse and fall.” The cold shock in his blood leached higher, deeper, like a man drowning in frigid, unholy water. The cold brought knowledge. The pain brought illumination. He was close to something. He was close to understanding. “Step to the edge and tell me what you see.” Narsaleth opened his eyes and stared at those of the Oinoloth. “What do you see?” The young arcanaloth’s lips curled back into a grin and a trickle of acidic tears began to roll down his face. Like Azcajal before him, he was terrified and overwhelmed, but unlike his former master, he was caught up in zeal and a desire to prove worthy of his new status. They might have walked, they might have teleported, or the room itself might have altered and shifted in response to the Oinoloth’s will. But as Narsaleth stared into the Ebon’s eyes with idolatry and a dozen incarnations of servile lust, there was water at their feet, water at their ankles, water at their waist; the cold, murky, dark waters of the Styx welled up from the arterial branches of the river, the place where some of the first yugoloths had been spawned beneath the Wasting Tower. The Ebon kissed the other fiend, slowly and deliberately licking away his tears and then sharing the taste upon his tongue like a sort of sacrament. “You have seen.” Vorkannis whispered. “Now what will you do?” “Anything, absolutely anything Father. Anything that you ask of me.” The Oinoloth cradled the other’s chin, bracing his hands against the sides of Narsaleth’s muzzle. Again, willingness was key. The astraloths were unthinking beings, individual automatons, but the creations bubbling in their vats, slipping towards sentience now, they required a willing mind spread through their essence. The newest slaves of the Oinoloth required a martyr within the synapses, a crucifer to sustain them and link them in their obeisance. And that sacrifice now looked with quasi-religious ecstasy into the eyes of his whispering master. “Pressure to collapse and fall…” The Ebon dipped his finger in the water and then stroked the other’s cheek. “That was what I said your race required before it could be purified a second time. Perched on the edge as you are now, there is no need to push, no need for pressure, no need to force this purification, because after all, why should I push when you will willingly jump?” A telepathic spark leapt between them both, but that further instruction was unnecessary, because already the newborn arcanaloth understood his role. He understood what he needed to do to prove himself worthy and to please the Oinoloth, though that title was paltry when compared to what he’d been shown. Narsaleth kissed the Ebon and stared longingly into that one’s burning eyes before kneeling and slipping below the surface of the numbing, soul sucking waters. Even as the darkness of the water obscured his vision and began to cloud his mind, he knew what had to be done. Anything you ask of me. Without hesitation, without compulsion, the fiend parted his lips and inhaled. Another excerpt. I adore this pair, and my PCs hated their attitude, and the royal PITA they became in the campaign this scene came from. The two ‘loths stood on the edge of the natural bowl of land that surrounded the Tower of Incarnate Pain, high up on the rust-red escarpment, just inside the veil of illusions and other wards that segregated them from the rest of Othrys. One of them sat on the cliff, legs dangling over the side, and the other stood several feet back, gazing out at the tower as the wind at those heights buffeted at his robes. They stood there in silence, having both arrived several minutes earlier, just after things had gone to hell within the tower below. They’d been there when Bubonix and Cholerix, the first lords of the tower, had been toppled. They’d been nycaloths at the time, and though they’d since been promoted, they had retained a pact, a contingency plan that would leap into effect if the leadership of the tower were to ever experience a state of flux. That time had arrived. Some of them had sensed it from the tower itself, or seen the ripple in the wards, or the momentary flicker of the furnace of cold illumination burning within the heart of the Reflective Chasm, and then rumor had spread from brain to tongue to ear and loyalty collapsed as should have been expected. The mistress was in a vulnerable state, imprisoned or otherwise detained off plane, while her physical body lay like a corpse in state within her personal chambers. The ranks of her senior advisors and agents had, in a black little heartbeat, become the ranks of her would-be killers and successors. “Hmm…” The first arcanaloth mused as he kicked his feet into the wind and felt the cold penetrate through his slippers and kiss at his toes. “…This is a setback.” “A setback?” The second arcanaloth asked. “Or an opportunity?” Despite the whistle of the wind and the ambient wail of the tower’s petitioners, the brothers’ smiles were audible. “She’ll be upset you know.” Alpthis commented. “When she returns.” “Absolutely.” Apteris replied. “The ashes outside her chamber at the edge of the wards were only two inches deep by the end of the hour. She’ll have wanted more, and she’ll find the lack of treachery as a fault no doubt.” Seated upon the edge of the cliff, the sorcerer nodded. “Oh indeed, there will be executions.” They both smiled and went silent, looking down at the base of the tower where the lesser yugoloths in service to the Manged still continued their tasks, ignorant of the situation that absorbed each and every nycaloth, arcanaloth, and ultroloth in the tower above them. The tower’s mistress had stumbled, but her lowest servants still served nonetheless, and the tower still screamed with the misery of its living bricks. The two arcanaloths said nothing, either verbally or telepathically for some time as they watched the tower. Finally, one of them spoke and broke the silence. “So what is it that you’re holding there?” Apteris asked, taking a step closer. “I can smell it on the wind, and the normal pitch is different from when we otherwise come up here to chat.” Alpthis chuckled and moved his hand to place a fist-sized object on the edge of the cliff. Apteris wrinkled his nose and looked at the black lump of ragged flesh. It was a heart, freshly removed from its recent body, likely by magic, probably within the last few minutes, and there was a rather pronounced bite that had been taken from the left ventricle. “So who was the victim?” The sorcerer-monk asked. “She was a traitor you see. Plotting against the mistress.” Alpthis explained, licking a bit of blood off of his lower lip. “At least that’s my excuse and I’ll be keeping to it.” Apteris said nothing as he gestured to the heart and telekinetically brought it to his right hand. He looked at the heart, sniffed at it like some expensive delicacy, and then bit into it like it were an apple. “So?” Alpthis asked while his brother finished his taste. “Your opinion on the matter brother?” “I recognize the taste. Lucinda Ap Fireth.” He said, taking a second bite before tossing it back for his brother to finish. “I -should- recognize the taste. I was -edit naughty bit- you know.” “Only when I wasn’t.” “Not even then always.” They shared a mutual chuckle; a rival out of the way, even if their beds might lack a partner for the short term. “I’ve shared, both admission of sin and a bite of a stolen heart.” Alpthis said, turning around to look at his brother for the first time. “So now it’s my turn to ask: what’s in your left hand?” The standing ‘loth tossed the head to the ground where it rolled to a halt a short distance from his brother, the glaze of death dulling the formerly blazing eyes of the ultroloth. “Congratulations brother.” Alpthis said, poking at the claw divots in the scalp of the severed head. “Seems that you found him before I did.” Apteris gave a perfunctory bow. “I apologize for the state of the cut, it’s a bit ragged I know, but I was in a hurry.” “Such can be forgiven.” His brother replied, grinning ear to ear. “I suppose we can share the brain before he begins to dissolve. We’ve never dined on ultroloth before.” “It would have been the heart.” Alpthis explained, looking at the palm of his hand. “But unfortunately that happened to explode in his chest at some point. Seems that today was my turn to be the impulsive one.” Again they shared a look, a grin, and a conspiratorial chuckle as glanced from heart to head and back towards the tower of their once and future mistress. Opportunity came to those who had the presence of mind to see it and had the will to grasp it, and at the moment, in the moment of their lady’s weakness, they had an abundance of both. A minute later and their fingers were scooped into the brain of the former ultroloth, Malzigran of the Fetid Heart, and with a look and feeling of disturbing satisfaction playing across their muzzles and beating a rhythm through their skulls, they shared in their victory meal, consuming their kills while they looked up at the distant tower. “Here’s to opportunity!”
Bob the Efreet 09-04-07, 09:01 PM	Another excerpt. I adore this pair, and my PCs hated their attitude, and the royal PITA they became in the campaign this scene came from. I think they're great.
Taeldrin Laesrash 09-04-07, 11:24 PM	Yeah, they're great in a really twisted way. As for playing one; it might be a bit hard to explain why one's adventuring. Nonetheless, I'd give it about +10, given the spells, SLAs, and DR, and Outsider HD.
Deacon Liadon 09-05-07, 06:31 AM	I had planned to play one recently, unfortunately the campaign it was going to be in never got off the ground. Shirketh the Apostate, as he's known, considers himself as a sort of policeman for Yugoloth plots and schemes, encouraging those that would help the race and the idea of evil flourish, while culling those schemes that could potentially endanger the position of the 'Loths. I'll be getting some use of him from time-to-time thankfully since he'll be showing up in a campaign I'm running as both a protagonist and an antagonist depending on the situation.