mordenkainens tome of foes

detached, thoughtful demeanor

, channeling his frustra-

tion at being distracted from

pleasurable pursuits into

the actions

of a cool, efficient killer.

Cu

ltists. Graz'zt attracts most of his followers

from

the

ranks of those who seek pleasure above

all else.

He promises dark delights

and forbidden ecstasies, in

return for total submiss

ion to him. His cult gathers new

members by ci rculati

ng tracts , poems, and other works

of art that depict encounters with him.

Upstanding folk

regard these works as vulgar, wretched,

and obscene,

but the delights they

depict or describe sometimes lure a

curious soul into

learning more about the demon lord.

When a cult

beseeches him during the induction of

new memb

ers, Graz'zt sends a n emissary or an avatar

to preside over the proceedings,

which conclude with

the new followers being treated

to a night of debauchery.

jUIBLEX

The Faceless

Lord is a truly alien creature, said to be

re-

s ponsible for

spawning the oozes found throughout

the

world. Those

who s tudy such topics theorize that

every

such creature has a connect

ion to Juiblex, and the de-

mon lord sees a nd knows

all that its minions encounter.

Wherever Juiblex wanders

, it leaves trailings in its

wake

that coalesce into new slimes and oozes.

Most

sages

believe that ifJuiblex and its s pawn were

given

free rein, they would

one day overrun the universe, turn-

ing every realm into

an ooze-infested wasteland.

Cultists. Juiblex

has few cultists, and most of them are

incurably disturbed or delusional. His

mortal cultists

preach of the glorious day to come, when

a tide of slimes

and oozes will swallow the world.

These wretched fol-

lowers believe t

hat by aligning with Juiblex, they can

avoid the fat

e that awaits all other living creatures.

The lord

's followers dwell underground, whe re they

maintain a stable of oozes and

slimes that help to pro-

tect their gathering place. They

use traps to capture

sentient creatures, then feed

them to the oozes in a si m-

ulation

of what awaits all who don't reverejuiblex.

0RCUS

The bloated Demon Prince
of the Undead seeks to end

all life in the cosmos, replacing

the living with immortal,

undead creatures that answer

only to him. In this grim

future.

the many suns of the Material Plane

are extin-

guis

hed, and all hope has faded away. All that

remains is

the eternally static realm of the living dead

.

Orcus is the universe

's staunchest advocate of stag-

nation. He sees the activity

of life as noisy, crude, and

maddening. It rakes

at his senses like the claws of a rat

scratch across a hard floor. In his view
, the universe can

know peace only when

life's incessant hum is replaced

with the peace
and quiet of the world of the dead.

Cultists. Worshipers

of Orcus are heretics and blas-

phemers who see the gods of the mu

ltiverse as cruel,

unjust creatures. They resent that

mortals must suffer

and die at th

e whims of these entities. In Orcus, they

see

the prom

ise of release from pain without the demand

of

obedience. In the state of undeath

that Orcus offers , they

will be free from hunger, fear
, and worry.

People who have lost a lov

ed one to a tragic death are

especially s usceptible to
his appeal. A father stricken

with grief after the death of h

is child might seek Orcus's

intervention

in returning his child to the world a ft

er the

gods

cruelly snatched her away.

All who would become cultists

of Orcus must be

willing to become undead.

Those who commit to the

cause are admitted to

the cult. Those who have second

thoughts and attempt

to decline are destroyed, their

souls condemned to the Outer Planes while

their bodies

a re animated as skeletons and zombies.

YEENOGHU

Also known as the Beast

of Butchery, Yeenoghu in s pires

his followers to devour

any creatures they meet. In his

mind, the cosmos

is made up only of predators and prey.

To sate his blood lust, Yeenoghu ofte

n rampages

across the Abyss, killing everything

in his path. Only

those demons

that join him in wreaking carnage can

avoid his wr

ath. Yeenoghu's wanderings across the

Abyss are like the meanderings

of a storm. He and his

cultists pass through an area

like a monstrous hurri-

cane whose course can never

be predicted.

Of all the demon lords , Yeenoghu

has made the great-

est mark

on the Material Plane. Dur ing his rampage

across

the world eons ago, the race of gnolls

sprang up

in his wake. Every gnoll

is a miniature embodiment of

Yeenoghu's rage and

hunger. They mimic their creator,

killing any creatures that cross them and

respecting

only those that can withstand their fury

.

Cultists. Yeenoghu rarely acquires

cultists other than

gnolls , leucrottas, and the other creatures

spawned by

his incursions

across the planes. The few humanoids

that take up

his worship are disaffected loners, many

of

them outcasts driven away from

civilization. A cult of

Yeenoghu operates like a pack

of gnolls, regardless of

what creatures make it up. Yeenoghu

infuses them with

a cannibalistic

hunger, and they know that each vict

im

they claim

draws them closer to his presence.

ZUGGTMOY

The Demon Queen of Fungi h

as many traits similar to

those ofJuiblex. Some sages

believe she is the origi-

nator of

all fungi and molds, from the mushroom

s that

grow

in the forest to the deadliest forms of yell

ow mold.

Those

who study demons argue that Zuggtmoy

isn't

merely a patron of fungi

, and that her ultimate goal is

to meld all living creatur

es into one great organism, an

entity that s he will then join with and rule

over.

Cultists. Most of Zuggtmoy's cultists

are hapless mor-

tals that have been infested with the demonic

s pores she

cultivates in the fungi she created. The

spores slowly de-

vour these creatures'

brains, leaving them with enough

functionality

to spread malevolent fungi but robbing

them of the

will to turn against their master.

A few mortals

freely enter her service. Most are dru-

ids who

want to exterminate civilization and repl

ace it

with wild

plants and fungus, or deluded, power-hung

ry

individu

a ls who believe that they would retain

their iden-

tities w hile they bring others

under Zuggtmoy's thrall.

Zuggtmoy allows these

zealots to retain their existing

forms

if doing so furthers her a ims and helps

to spread

her children far and wide, but they are destined

for the

same fate as all the othe rs.

CHAPTER 1 I TliE BLOOD WAR

29