Demogorgon

"The first of these new demons was a twisted, deformed abortion of evil with boneless arms, twin simian heads, reptilian legs, and a twisted tail—a snapping, howling, and ultimately uncontrollable monster formed from the primal fears of mortal souls."

— The Demonomicon of Iggwilv

Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, is one of the most powerful of all demon lords. His two heads are known as Aameul and Hethradiah.

Description

Appearance

Demogorgon is eighteen feet tall, a monstrous demon with two apelike heads and long tentacles where arms should be. His massive torso is somehow both incredibly muscular and as flexible as a snake, with a reptilian lower half and with a massive forked tail.

Personality

Demogorgon's two heads behave together in a manner best described as a form of insanity. He is violent and prone to destruction and revenge.

His left head, named Aameul, is intelligent, charismatic, and capable of formulating careful plans. The right head, Hethradiah, is violent, impulsive and feral. Although terrifying and utterly deadly in combat, he prefers to leave battles to one of this numerous powerful minions.

Names and titles

Demogorgon is called the Prince of Demons, although he is not the first to claim that title. He is called Lord of all theat Swims in Darkness.

In the World of Greyhawk, Demogorgon is known to the troglodyte followers under the alias of Ahmon-Ibor, the Sibilant Beast. The yuan-ti in their hidden caverns worship him as Siosivash.

His two heads have individual names: the left Aameul, and the right Hethradiah.

Worship

Though not a true deity, numerous cults have followed Demogorgon.

Worshipers

The ixitxachitl, an aquatic race of intelligent rays little known to land-dwellers, are Demogorgon's most numerous followers.

The krakens once served Demogorgon, but he abandoned them for being too busy with their own Machiavellian scheming. Demogorgon once had a large number of troglodyte followers, but almost all have been wiped out by followers faithful to the troglodyte god Laogzed.

Demogorgon has numerous small, highly dangerous cults among human societies and others. His followers often embrace cannibalism.

Rituals

Followers of Demogorgon make sacrifices which invariably involve the killing of innocents, especially good-aligned priests and demon hunters, whom Demogorgon especially despises. One particularly profane ritual unique to the followers of Demogorgon involves summoning a demon to perform the killing blow, whereupon the soul is carried to his realm and forcibly forged into a demon larvae.

Another terrifying ritual is called the Feast of the Self. A demon scoops out and eats part of the brain of a willing participant, before spitting it back into the participant's mouth, who must consume their own brain matter. Those who survive this dangerous rite become a Thrall of Demogorgon, gradually transforming into a horrible creature.

Demogorgon's chaotic priesthood often wear snake-like headdresses and offer sacrifices of blood and souls on black altars.

Holy sites

A handful of ancient temples to Demogorgon lie beneath the earth or in other hidden places, waiting to be rediscovered, inhabited by ancient slumbering priests or tribes of intelligent apelike creatures.

Holy symbol

Followers of Demogorgon use the holy symbol of a serpentine forked tail, often coiled around a skull, sword or the like.

Relationships

Enemies

Numerous demon lords covet Demogorgon's power. Demogorgon's main rivals are the demon lords Orcus and Graz'zt. Individually, neither has sufficient strength to defeat Demogorgon, and while they might succeed if they worked together, the two are bitter enemies.

He fears the return of Obox-ob, the once-powerful obyrith lord who first held the title of Prince of Demons, and who has tried and failed to kill Demogorgon on multiple occasions.

Demogorgon's two heads, Aameul and Hethradiah, are their own worst enemies. While one cannot survive without the other, both have attempted to hatch elaborate plans to eliminate the other.

Allies

While most demon lords accept his position, Demogorgon has few allies.

Ilsidahur, demon lord of the bar-lguras, has long been an ally of Demogorgon and guards the Prince of Demon's realm, although relations between them have been strained of late. He considers Dagon a trusted advisor. Zuggtmoy, demon queen of fungi, is friendly with Demogorgon.

He currently holds Malcanthet, Queen of Succubi, as his consort. Among their monstrous offspring is the horrific demon Arendagrost. He imprisoned his previous lover, the succubus Shami-Amourae, in the Well of Darkness for all eternity.

Minions

Demogorgon is credited with the creation of numerous demons and oher monsters which fill his fortress at Ungorth Reddik, including the retrievers, the half-fiendish lemorians, the lemorian golems, the orlath demons, the death knights, and the loumaras. He reforged the demon lord Azuvidexus.

An exceptionally powerful balor named Belcheresk is the supreme commander of Demogorgon's massive armies of demons, constructs and other monsters, which total in the millions. His armies primarily consist of hezrous, aboleths, scrags, skum, and fish-like creatures.

Saint Kargoth the Betrayer, the first death knight, serves Demogorgon in his realm.

Both of Demogorgon's heads have their own agents who work against each other. Among those is the Cathezar, an exceptional half-demon, half-devil creature in the service of Aameul, and Nurn, a rogue death slaad working for Hethradiah.

Realm

Demogorgon inhabits the Gaping Maw, the 88th layer of the Abyss. Here lies a landmass called the Screaming Jungle, a vast island at the edge the Abyssian Ocean. A whirlpool in the River Styx drains into his realm.

A hundred miles offshore lies Abysm, the two serpentine towers of Demogorgon which descend into the sea below.

At the land's shore lie the swampy Brine Flats, at whose edge stand the realm's capital city of Lemoriax. In these swamps Demogorgon has a fortress, Ungorth Reddik, filled with his minions.

History

Prehistory

In a time before the first mortal man was born, beings called obyriths ruled the Abyss. Its ruler, the nameless Queen of Chaos, gathered the first mortal souls of evil humans which found their way to her domain. These souls grew into a new type of demon, the tanar'ri.

Demogorgon was the first of the tanar'ri, a chaotic and misshapen creature formed from the primal fear of mortal souls. The Queen of Chaos considered Demogorgon a mistake and cast him aside, where he lay forgotten.

In time, the tanar'ri rose up and overthrew their obyrith rulers, with the demon lords Graz'zt and Orcus warring with each other to claim the ultimate title of Prince of Demons. The forgotten Demogorgon suddenly rose from forgotten depths and slew countless tanari'ri lords. The remaining tanar'ri—even Graz'zt and Orcus, their forces depleted by fighting each other—were forced to accept Demogorgon as the new Prince of Demons.

Ancient history

Demogorgon is credited with the conquest of the Blood Shallows and the destruction of the realm of N'gharl.

He briefly conquered half of Hollow's Heart, realm of Fraz-Urb'luu, but was forced to withdraw when his own realm was invaded by Zuregurex, tanar'ri lord of the drowned dead. Demogorgon responded by destroying that demon lord's realm, Guttlevetch, the 480th layer of the Abyss, which lies in ruins to this day.

Around a thousand years ago, Demogorgon annihilated the empire of Thanaclan in a wave of madness known as a savage tide. Demogorgon attempted to convert the Isle of Dread into an Abyssal realm under his control, but has not been successful.

Recent history

Demogorgon's two heads, Amaeul and Hethradiah, have made countless attempts to dominate or destroy each other.

Amaeul attempted to use Ammet, the demonic heart of the dragon Ashardalon locked in the Bastion of Unborn Souls to survive the decapitation of Hethradiah. His plan ultimately failed when adventurers, including a descendent of the ancient hero Dydd, slew Ashardalon.

Hethradiah in turn has attempted to use a massive savage tide to cause Demogorgon's two heads to absorb each other, forming a single supremely powerful Demogorgon.

Publication history

Original D&D

Demogorgon's first appearance is in Eldritch Wizardry (1976), where he is detailed on page 37. He is described as one of the most powerful of all demon princes, a two-headed reptilian being standing 18 feet tall and commanding a massive array of magical and psionic abilities. He has ten 10-sided hit dice and an armor class of -8, impressive statistics for that edition of the game.

AD&D 1st edition

Demogorgon, Prince of Demons, appears in the AD&D Monster Manual (1e) (1977), p.16, where he is described as a rival of Orcus. His game statistics include a massive 200 hit points, a record at the time.

AD&D 2nd edition

Demogorgon appears as a lesser god in DMGR4 Monster Mythology (1992), p.88. His followers include the ixixachitl, including vampiric clerics from that aquatic race, but he has no human clerics. He is a rival of Sekolah, god of the sahuagin.

He appears in the Baldur's Gate II expansion Throne of Bhaal, where he is a level 25 creature.

D&D 3rd edition

Demogorgon is detailed in Book of Vile Darkness (3e) (2002), p.125-130. His realm is given as the 88th layer of the Abyss (perhaps not coincidentally the same page number on which he appeared in DMGR4 Monster Mythology (1992)), a dank and dark place called the Brine Flats or the Gaping Maw. His two heads are named as Aameul and Hethradiah, whose conflicting thoughts are perceived as insanity. He is given a challenge rating of 30, making him one of the most powerful creatures in the game. He is depicted with hyena heads reminiscent of Yeenoghu instead of baboon heads; according to Dragon #357, this is an error.

He is the ultimate antagonist behind the scenes in Bastion of Broken Souls (2002), where his head Aameul arranges for adventurers to kill the dragon Ashardalon as part of an elaborate plot to kill his other head, Hethradiah.

Demogorgon appears in D&D 3.5's Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss (2006), p.61-63, this time as a CR 23 creature. It is clarified that Aameul is the left head, and Hethradiah the right.

The cult of Demogorgon appears prominently in the Savage Tide Adventure Path (Dungeon Magazine 139-150). In the final chapter, Prince of Demons, the player characters enter Demogorgon's lair and face him directly, in this incarnation a CR33 creature upgraded from the version in the Fiendish Codex.

Demogorgon, his realm and his cult are described in great detail in Dragon Magazine #357, p.20-32, and appears on the cover of that issue.

D&D 4th edition

Demogorgon appears on the cover of Monster Manual 2{{UnknownBook}} where he is detailed on pages 42-44. He is a level 34 Solo Controller, one of the highest level statblocks in the game and exceeded only by the primordial Mual-Tar and three deities. Demogorgon's origin story is that he had one head until the deity Amoth split it in two.

D&D 5th edition

Demogorgon appears on the cover of the adventure module Out of the Abyss (2015). His statblock appears on pages 236-237, where he is a challenge rating 26 creature. His followers are said to be doomed to eventual insanity.

Creative origins

Demogorgon was inspired by a being of that name appearing in popular occult mythology. D&D creator Gary Gygax described his inspirations in an ENWorld forum thread:

Demogorgon is mentioned in various occult books, demonologies list him.

Gygax described the sources which inspired his interpretation of Demogorgon:

It was the Greeks, in their mythology, who had Demogorgon originally. He was held as the elemental force of earth that which made plants grow, and was thus depicted as an old man covered with moss. Medieval writers demonized him into a terrible ruler of the underworld--a much more colorful depiction for use in a FRPG :-o

The earliest known reference to the name Demogorgon appears in a popular Latin commentary (dated around 350-400 AD) of the ancient epic Roman poem Thebaid (published around 92 AD). The name "Demogorgon" is speculated by scholars to be a misspelling of the Greek "dēmiourgon", meaning "demiurge", introduced by later transcriptions.

This commentary on Thebaid is known to have survived until the 1600s, where the name Demogorgon appears in Milton's 1667 work, Paradise Lost:

Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name

Of Demogorgon; Rumor next and Chance,

And Tumult and Confusion all imbroild,

And Discord with a thousand various mouths.