Orcus
Orcus is the Demon Prince of Undeath, known as the Blood Lord. He takes some pleasure in the sufferings of the living, but far prefers the company and service of the undead. His desire is to see all life quenched and the multiverse transformed into a vast necropolis populated solely by undead creatures under his command.
Orcus rewards those who spread death in his name by granting them a small portion of his power. The least of these become ghouls and zombies who serve in his legions, while his favored servants are the cultists and necromancers who murder the living and then manipulate the dead. emulating their dread master.
Orcus is a bestial creature of corruption with a diseased, decaying look. He has the lower torso of a goat, and a humanoid upper body with a corpulent belly swollen with rot. Great bat wings sprout from his shoulders, and his head is like the skull of a goat, the flesh nearly rotted from it. In one hand, he wields the legendary Wand of Orcus.
Divine Domains
Death
Divine Symbols & Sigils
Wand of Orcus
Divine Goals & Aspirations
Orcus is in many ways a contradictory figure. He does not delight in his charges, the undead, and has not taken up the self-proclaimed mantle "Prince of the Undead" out of devotion or allegiance. If anything, the demon lord despises undead. He has little but contempt for them and uses them without thought or consideration. Of course, Orcus despises the living as well. He hates all things, and seethes with utter revulsion and loathing at all times. He craves only personal power and the spread of misery and destruction for all others.
Occasionally, Orcus allows his wand to be found by a mortal in order to wreak greater chaos and evil among those inhabiting the Material Plane. This sort of dalliance lasts only for a short time—perhaps a year or two at most—before the bloated prince grows bored and reclaims his artifact, usually along with the soul of whoever currently wields it.
Orcus is in a constant state of war with his rivals Demogorgon and Graz'zt. More often than not, actual warfare occurs between his armies of undead and demons and Graz'zt's hordes of monsters and demons. Strife with Demogorgon often takes a more subtle guise, that of assassination and sabotage. This is usually because both his and Demogorgon's full armies are simultaneously warring against the forces of Graz'zt. However, sometimes the legions of Orcus and Demogorgon meet in the course of their struggle against Graz'zt, and then they attack each other as viciously as they fight the legions of the Dark Prince.
After becoming complacent in his eternal war with Demogorgon and Graz’zt, Orcus was recently murdered and deposed. But then, Orcus rose from the dead—an undead demon—and took the name Tenebrous for a time, hiding in the shadows of the multiverse and waiting to take his revenge. Now he has reinstated himself to his former position and reclaimed his realm Thanatos, and once again finds himself in a struggle for dominance with many other demon lords.
Orcus is no longer content to grow fat and decadent in his castle. He focuses his anger and hate on the absolute destruction of his enemies and the spread of woe and havoc among mortals. He covets Graz’zt and Demogorgon’s realms above all others, and commands a host of undead and demons that ravage entire layers of the Abyss at his whim.
Against Graz’zt, Orcus’s tactics are fairly direct. He constantly sends wave after wave of his limitless undead armies against Graz’zt’s three Abyssal layers, continuing these battles eternally since Orcus can replace fallen undead soldiers as quickly as they are destroyed by Graz’zt’s defenders. This relentless assault is inexorably penetrating deeper and deeper into Graz’zt’s territory, but at nowhere near the pace that Orcus wishes.
He realizes that Demogorgon is a more powerful foe, and as a result, Orcus’s actions against the Prince of Demons are more subtle. He sends small bands of nabassu, vampires, and liches into Gaping Maw and other places Demogorgon holds sway to undertake missions of precisely calibrated assassination and sabotage.
Yet while Orcus himself might not be as powerful as Demogorgon, and his realm might be dwarfed by the size of Graz’zt’s holdings, Orcus’s cult on the Material Plane is in truth his greatest resource. In particular, orcs, half-orcs, ogres, and giants revere Orcus, as do a large number of corrupt and despicable humans. His temples are usually hidden, and his worshipers form secret societies that commit atrocities and wage wars in his name. He demands living sacrifice from his cultists, and blood and skulls are important parts of the imagery used in his worship. Intelligent undead rarely serve him willingly, although many vampires, liches, and other undead creatures are forced into his service by dark pacts or compelling magic.
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