Abaddon
One day soon, all existence will end in a great multiversal apocalypse. When the final angelic trumpets sound out the death knell of the mortal world, untold legions of locust demons will boil forth from the depths of the Abyss, ravaging everything in their path and laying ruin to the great works of humanity. Abaddon, Demon prince of the apocalypse, will stand at the vanguard of this unthinkable army. Laughing.
Students of the occult arts know Abaddon as one of the oldest demons, a being of such incalculable power that even his demonic contemporaries work to ensure that he never leaves his home layer, a chilling void known simply as the Bottomless Pit. Abaddon is destruction personified, a completely amoral, unfeeling agent of calamity who has a hand in most of the great natural catastrophes of the mortal realm. While Anarazel gives violent life to the cold ground in the form of terrible earthquakes, and Vepar encourages great floods and waves, learned occultists see the grim smile of Abaddon in the corpses left after these tragedies. His handiwork reveals itself in the famines and blights that follow natural disasters. Though his insectoid legions thrum with demonic blood, few doubt Abaddon’s dominion over ordinary locusts and grasshoppers, who honor him by plaguing crops in a metaphorical mirror of the destruction that soon will be visited upon all the world. In some lands, Abaddon is known as Apollyon.
Description
Abaddon has not been seen in the mortal realm since shortly after the demons defeated the ghaeles occupying The Abyss. The few remaining accounts describe a towering, hideous figure with scales like a fish, draconic “hooked” wings, and great feet and paws like those of a bear. Segmented, insectoid eyes dominate the Demon prince’s cruel face, set just above a double set of razor-sharp mandibles. Fire peeks through the rotten holes in his belly, casting off acrid, cloying smoke.Realm
The Bottomless Pit forms a great maw nearly three miles wide near the geographic center of the Howling Threshold. Rumors suggest that the rent formed in the earliest days of the qlippoth– ghaele conflict, when some unknowable horror unleashed by the plane’s original masters backfired and tore a hole in The Abyss. Eventually, the plane fused its own infernal energy with the nullspace in the void, in a sense “adopting” its own wound as a fullblown Abyssal layer. Shortly thereafter, Abaddon constructed the great palace of Gulthrax as an homage to himself and cast the structure, himself, and his entire demonic entourage into the chasm. The lore of Demon and Angel alike claims that Gulthrax eventually will pass out of the pit to land upon Eldarr, at which point the prophesied apocalypse will begin in earnest and Abaddon’s locust demons will flood the world. Gulthrax maintains its own gravity and sense of stability, though it constantly spins and bounces off the layer’s walls. The fortress contains a large variety of demons, most of whom look forward to the End Times with utter devotion to their liege. Locust demons dominate nearly every part of the shaft—seldom will a traveler falling or flying down the Bottomless Pit come across a spot where she cannot see at least a dozen of the creatures. Perhaps a hundred brave vrocks fly throughout the chasm, dining on the souls who fall or are thrown into the pit (the locust demons ignore such provender).Worshippers
Mortal followers of Abaddon generally believe that the apocalypse will occur within their lifetimes, and go about fomenting anarchy and unrest in an attempt to speed along the decay of the world. End Times-obsessed nihilists, cultists, and especially thaumaturges of Abaddon believe that by doing the work of the Minister of Death and Havoc they will be spared the consuming fury of the coming locust legions. Not all who follow Abaddon do so with such calculation, however. Common among those who honor him is the competitive farmer who, coveting the harvest of his neighbor, sends a small sacrifice to Abaddon to befoul the greater crop.Obedience
For one hour each day, a thaumaturge in service to Abaddon must whisper to a live locust an account of all that he has done to speed along the course of multiversal decay within the last 24 hours. These reports include updates on the status of the thaumaturge’s enemies (often excuses for why they have not yet been killed), details on recently discovered magical secrets or ancient lore, and the thaumaturge’s plans for the day ahead. At the end of the ritual, the thaumaturge consumes the locust, which mystically transmits all it has heard to the mind of the Lord of the Bottomless Pit. Thereafter, the thaumaturge’s daily allotment of spells is replenished.
Divine Classification
Demon
Alignment
Chaotic evil
Current Location
Species
Realm
Children
Aligned Organization
Ruled Locations
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