detached, thoughtful demeanor
, channeling his frustra-tion at being distracted from
pleasurable pursuits intothe actions
of a cool, efficient killer.Cu
ltists. Graz'zt attracts most of his followers
fromthe
ranks of those who seek pleasure above
all else.He promises dark delights
and forbidden ecstasies, inreturn for total submiss
ion to him. His cult gathers newmembers by ci rculati
ng tracts , poems, and other worksof art that depict encounters with him.
Upstanding folkregard these works as vulgar, wretched,
and obscene,but the delights they
depict or describe sometimes lure acurious soul into
learning more about the demon lord.When a cult
beseeches him during the induction ofnew memb
ers, Graz'zt sends a n emissary or an avatarto preside over the proceedings,
which conclude withthe 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
theworld. Those
who s tudy such topics theorize that
everysuch 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 itswake
that coalesce into new slimes and oozes.
Mostsages
believe that ifJuiblex and its s pawn were
givenfree 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 areincurably disturbed or delusional. His
mortal cultistspreach of the glorious day to come, when
a tide of slimesand oozes will swallow the world.
These wretched fol-lowers believe t
hat by aligning with Juiblex, they canavoid the fat
e that awaits all other living creatures.The lord
's followers dwell underground, whe re theymaintain a stable of oozes and
slimes that help to pro-tect their gathering place. They
use traps to capturesentient 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 grimfuture.
the many suns of the Material Plane
are extin-guis
hed, and all hope has faded away. All that
remains isthe 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, andmaddening. It rakes
at his senses like the claws of a ratscratch across a hard floor. In his view
, the universe can
know peace only when
life's incessant hum is replacedwith 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 sufferand die at th
e whims of these entities. In Orcus, they
seethe prom
ise of release from pain without the demand
ofobedience. In the state of undeath
that Orcus offers , theywill be free from hunger, fear
, and worry.
People who have lost a lov
ed one to a tragic death areespecially s usceptible to
his appeal. A father stricken
with grief after the death of h
is child might seek Orcus'sintervention
in returning his child to the world a ft
er thegods
cruelly snatched her away.All who would become cultists
of Orcus must bewilling to become undead.
Those who commit to thecause are admitted to
the cult. Those who have secondthoughts and attempt
to decline are destroyed, theirsouls condemned to the Outer Planes while
their bodiesa re animated as skeletons and zombies.YEENOGHU
Also known as the Beast
of Butchery, Yeenoghu in s pireshis followers to devour
any creatures they meet. In hismind, the cosmos
is made up only of predators and prey.To sate his blood lust, Yeenoghu ofte
n rampagesacross the Abyss, killing everything
in his path. Onlythose demons
that join him in wreaking carnage canavoid his wr
ath. Yeenoghu's wanderings across theAbyss are like the meanderings
of a storm. He and hiscultists 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 rampageacross
the world eons ago, the race of gnolls
sprang upin his wake. Every gnoll
is a miniature embodiment ofYeenoghu's rage and
hunger. They mimic their creator,killing any creatures that cross them and
respectingonly those that can withstand their fury
.Cultists. Yeenoghu rarely acquires
cultists other thangnolls , leucrottas, and the other creatures
spawned byhis incursions
across the planes. The few humanoidsthat take up
his worship are disaffected loners, many
ofthem outcasts driven away from
civilization. A cult ofYeenoghu operates like a pack
of gnolls, regardless ofwhat creatures make it up. Yeenoghu
infuses them witha cannibalistic
hunger, and they know that each vict
imthey claim
draws them closer to his presence.ZUGGTMOY
The Demon Queen of Fungi h
as many traits similar tothose ofJuiblex. Some sages
believe she is the origi-nator of
all fungi and molds, from the mushroom
s thatgrow
in the forest to the deadliest forms of yell
ow mold.Those
who study demons argue that Zuggtmoy
isn'tmerely a patron of fungi
, and that her ultimate goal isto meld all living creatur
es into one great organism, anentity 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 shecultivates in the fungi she created. The
spores slowly de-vour these creatures'
brains, leaving them with enoughfunctionality
to spread malevolent fungi but robbingthem 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 itwith wild
plants and fungus, or deluded, power-hung
ryindividu
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 existingforms
if doing so furthers her a ims and helps
to spreadher children far and wide, but they are destined
for thesame fate as all the othe rs.CHAPTER 1 I TliE BLOOD WAR29