Obox-ob

Obox-ob is an obyrith demon lord of poisons and verminous creatures. He is an eldritch being from a long forgotten era before the tanar'ri demons and the Prince of Demons before Demogorgon.

Description

Obox-ob was a nightmarish entity, seemingly a cross between a backwards scorpion and a monstrous millipede, with clusters of chitinous, arachnoid limbs ending in deadly talons, erratically clambering about his distended form. The places where his three-faced head and three, massive tails should be were reversed, although both ends were equipped with wicked stingers. His tail edges were jagged and dripped a black venom while his hideous visage, supported by a thick neck stalk, had a hollow, corkscrew-shaped spike at the end of his red tongue. His three faces gave him three sets of malicious, crimson eyes and a vertical maw that housed his tongue.

Personality

Once one of the most reviled and powerful residents of the Abyss, the Prince of Vermin's primal fury grows alongside the cravings for his former glory. Even his own layer is not safe from his rage-fueled rampages and he frequently brings ruin upon his own servitors. His hatred for the tanar'ri, to which his former position is bestowed upon and who betray their masters, runs unimaginably deep and he seeks no less than their utter extinction. That isn't to say however that his hatred ends at the tanar'ri; Obox-ob seeks to bring about the annihilation of all things, it is just that his ire is most directly pointed at the current rulers of the Abyss.

If Demogorgon grows weakened or is defeated, either by Obox-ob's hand or another, the Prince of Vermin will quickly attempt to reclaim his status, sending increasingly powerful waves of obyriths to attack the Gaping Maw. If allowed to retake his position as Prince of Demons, the tanar'ri will quickly fade away as the obyriths emerge from and retake the Abyss, infesting the Astral Sea and spreading like a virulent plague throughout the multiverse. Until he can return to his prime however, Obox-Ob's plans for vengeance will have to wait.

Divine Realm

Obox-ob's original domain is the Blood Shallows, a marshy realm filled with large hills. While the color of the skies and clouds are reversed, the atmosphere is white and the clouds are blue, the water itself is blood-red and dangerously acidic. He has long since been forced to abandon that layer and flee into one of the deepest depths of the Abyss, the 663rd layer of the Abyss, Zionyn, so remote and uninhabitable that he can maintain unquestioned influence within it.

Consisting of rugged wastes and seas of reeking resin, the infested layer is swarming with ekolids, endless plagues of fiendish vermin, horrific abominations and obyriths unseen throughout the rest of the Abyss. The ekolids, unusually, create complex, hideous hive cities from the harvested ocean ooze and the corpses of a vast range of exotic creatures used as incubators. Nightmarish cathedrals, temples, and towers constructed from the preserved bodies of terrified victims can be seen throughout their cities, all pleasing monuments to Obox-Ob and his unholy wrath despite his tendency to destroy his own domain.

Activities

Obox-ob's primary concern is recovering from his diminished state in order to reestablish himself as the Prince of Demons. He carefully observes his cults on the Material Plane, waiting for an opportunity to grow in power.

Worshippers

Outside of the ekolids, Obox-ob was the patron of those who saw divinity in vermin and whose cults dwelt in deserts of ancient ruins where they could be close to his sacred creatures, the scorpions. Although they were a powerful force on many worlds, his cultists had to operate in the shadows after a near-victory and humiliating defeat where his worshipers failed to draw a Material world into the Abyss. By disrupting the magical flow of the ritual at an important phase, the heroes of the realm foiled his attempt to use the world as power to ascend, forcing Obox-Ob and his followers to act more cautiously.

Relationships

Obox-Ob was potentially the one being that Demogorgon could be said to fear, to the point where even an aspect of the former Prince of Demons would demoralize him. Obox-ob held unbridled hatred for Demogorgon and sought his demise for stealing his title.

Despite being a tanar'ri himself, the demon lord Kostchtchie sought to forge an alliance with Obox-ob, as the stubborn lord hated the tanar'ri and refused to acknowledge himself as anything other than a frost giant. An alliance between them seemed unlikely, however, given the Prince of Vermin's tendency to devour visitors before giving them a chance to speak and the Prince of Wrath's own impatience hindering diplomacy.

Obox-ob's relation with Dagon, a fellow obyrith lord, was surrounded by rumors. Dagon served as the hated Demogorgon's oracle, and some believed that is was only through secrets shared by the obyrith that he managed to remain Prince of Demons so long. Some whispers claimed that Obox-ob had urged his tanar'ri servant Lascer to make a pact with the Prince of the Depths, allowing his pawn to inhabit the Shadowsea in his half-alive fortress. Others said that Lascer was actively fighting against Dagon, and hoped to one day kill him in his lair with his small army of assassins. Whatever the case, Dagon had yet to move against Lascer, perhaps because he didn't fear him in the slightest or possibly because of the tanar'ri assassin's conection to the former Prince of Demons.

There was also the unknowable elder evil Tharizdun, who shared Obox-ob's desire for destruction and who the Prince of Vermin would help be released from his prison if possible.

History

Obox-ob was in fact the first and most powerful obyrith to rise from the primeval chaos of the Abyss. It had become common knowledge in the Abyss that Obox-Ob was the former Prince of Demons during the Age before Ages when obyriths ruled, and whose title was stolen from him by the Queen of Chaos and gifted to tanar'ri, Miska the Wolf Spider. Although many of his aspects tried to escape, they were slaughtered by the Queen, except for one that hid within Zionyn until the situation had cooled down. After skulking for eons as a shadow of his former self, he left the layer for the first time to discover that he, and the rule of the obyriths, was a thing of the past.

Less known was that a second aspect of Obox-Ob had survived by imprisoning itself within its original home to escape the Queen's wrath. While safe from the Queen of Chaos, it was unable to free itself, allowing newer demons and petty obyriths to squabble over the land while he remained the unseen 'lord' of the layer. Few beings, such as a partially insane baernaloth, knew of this other self.

Obox-ob's first meeting with a human, a planar explorer that was caught on his second expedition to Zionyn, was torturous and brutal. Using an unspeakable method that left him with rapiers wired to his hands and broken glass piercing his feet, he transformed the human into his tanar'ri minion and used his human form as a scout to investigate the activities of other demon lords before he was caught in Graz'zt's palace. Since then, Obox-ob modified him with amphibious abilities and seemed to be training the former human Lascer as a slayer of tanar'ri.

In 1376 DR, a settlement of the Torillian Underdark, Oaxatupa, was attacked by the Swordbelt Alliance. The tlincallis of Oaxatupa wished to get revenge on the surface-dwellers, and attacked both Amn and Murannheim. Obox-Ob sent his minions to aid the tlincallis via a portal from the Abyss.

Obox-ob

Obyrith Lord

Basic Information

Titles

Prince of Vermin
The Primal Chaos
Prince of Demons (formerly)

Pantheons

Archfiend

Attributes

Alignment

Chaotic Evil

Symbol

A scorpion hanging from its tail, threaded in the sockets of a jawless human skull

Realm

Infinite Layers of the Abyss/663rd Layer

Portfolio

-

Following

Worshippers

Ekolids

Domains

Favored Aspects

Animals/Plants

Scorpions