Demon Lord

Demon Lords are the gods of the Primordial Abyss, the rulers of that bleak world and the lords of all demons. There are many Demon Lords, as the Primordial Abyss is infinite and its denizens are numberless. Various Elder Races and Younger Races have worshiped Demon Lords, their demoniacal cults condemning countless numbers of people to sacrificial altars. In Laredhidan, the most prominent demon-worshipers were the Sran, but after the Great Migration the countless peoples of Mankind brought with them their own demoniacal cults, or adopted those of the races that predated them.

Genesis

The collected wisdom of the Elves postulates that Demon Lords are gods who arose in Tol Saodhir and never left. Usually these gods are described as post-dating those that made Caredhel, but some of them came into being at the same time as those ancient deities, and chose not to leave Tol Saodhir. Various other origins have been ascribed to them, but across culture and race it appears to be universal that Tol Saodhir - or the Primordial Chaos - is the origin of the gods and the Demon Lords.

The process that creates Demon Lords is a great mystery known only to themselves.

Worship

Demon Lords are indisputably gods; they are immortal and have great powers over the world, able to exert their divine will upon the weather, the soil, and the water. Through the sacrifice of mortal beings can they change the world; without this sacrifice it seems that they hold little power in Caredhel. The fear of Death is a powerful motivator in the worship of Demon Lords, for many of them promise - and can fulfill this promise - that they can permit one to cheat Death and escape his House. But they give the power to avert Death and achieve immortality very seldomly, and their worshipers turn to them for the means to defeat their enemies, to gain the wisdom to rule, and to win in love.

Demons in general, and their Lords in particular, seem to have great care for how they are worshiped; though their names change, demons suppose themselves to be of an order greater than the gods, in that they permit no equivalences and adopt no masks among foreign populations. The outward trappings of their rituals change, as do their depictions, but certain truths always exist and are never permitted to be changed; Saradsara is always depicted as a multi-armed serpent-woman, and never as anything else.

This fact regarding Demon Lords is a great treasure of lore, for it can preserve the rituals and some of the traditions of vanished races; the Sran, though still extant, have had their rituals preserved in the cult of Senereseran. The refusal of that Demon Lord to give any omens - save for the most gruesome and vengeful - to sacrifices made in its honor except in the manner of the Sran has preserved their traditions for ever; this commitment to proper ritual is not at all alien to the gods of our world, but where rituals will eventually change, Demon Lords rarely allow such a thing to occur. Only the aesthetic of it - that which does not matter to the spirit of the ritual - will ever change.

Legality in Laredhidan

Worship of Demon Lords has had a long history in Laredhidan; modern permissiveness of demoniacal cults only came about in most of the West after the downfall of the Kalduorian Empire. Though Dehir the Liberator had maintained the ban after the overthrow of Kalduor, during the reign of Dhuír drech Mhor it was repealed on behalf of his wife, Dhuadana draid Orhuír, and later attempts to reinstate the ban failed. Other kingdoms typically only had informal bans, based on tradition rather than law; as these traditions were given up or forgotten, demon worship became more common.

Before the Great Migration

Demon worship was long banned under the Great Realm of Laredhidan, and this ban was confirmed and upheld by all of the Elven Realms, including that of Madhoncaris, which had otherwise separated itself legally and culturally from its kindred Realms. The Thirteen Patrimonies had long held to the worship of Senereseran, and in Sorrot, Besanula, Zaravel, Ganbarica, and Catæl, demon worship was common for the Elder Races that dwelt there. In the Elven histories, the Nameless Men that had been enslaved by the Worm-men were demon worshipers.

Demoniacal cults seemed to be uncommon south of Ailt Talla and west of the White Gate. Certain Elder Races east of the gate, such as the Tú, never indulged in demon worship; it was common in those lands where demons were worshiped to also worship other, more terrestrial gods, and there seemed to be little conflict between the cults of terrestrial gods and the cults of Demon Lords. It is well-known that Dragons have never worshiped demons in any form, and so there existed no demoniacal cult in Ôrisikain and Tôriskalís.

Before the arrival of Mankind, there were no demoniacal cults in Hrisatelen, and the worship of demons was considered 'Sranish' and outlawed by both the Dreyn and the Menqelsai. Before the Great Migration, Alcraith never had any tradition of demon worship, and so had no reason to ban it.

After the Great Migration

The Great Migration had ended the established law for most of Laredhidan. Man had arrived and overthrew the old empires with sword, axe, and chariot; screaming hordes of Men, blood-crazed and furious, committed such atrocities that some lands remain cursed to this day. So varied are the legends of Man that little is known of the Old Homeland and the worship that had come naturally to Man; demon worship, however, was evidently normal and expected.

Only certain post-migratory kingdoms had maintained any bans on demon worship. The Kalduorian Empire enforced it vigorously and with such zeal that demon worship was stamped out of Dehirtadh, Oturon, Mírntæadh, and Mhorutagh. In other places, the Mannish tribes that had settled those areas possessed no tradition of demon worship; this was the case of the Men that had settled in Alcraith. Demon worship was likewise driven out of Ailt Talla, Uncyralen, Aztalor, and the Arm of Tûrsa, though in those lands the reasoning for it was not founded on law, but on disdain; their wars with the Sran were brutal, and they grew distrustful of demoniacal worship.

It was only west of the White Gates and Hrisatelen that the old bans remained in place; elsewhere, Man had either brought new cults or adopted those of the Elder Races.

Known Demon Lords

This part of the work is being completed by Loremasters.

• Lāsoia
• Lemrysu
• Sāthiora
• Dāsarāt
• Inglaroch
• Damathrand
• Yhārlach, known also as Sarnsan
• Beþot and Zāthor
• Tor Šothet
• Ynisene, known also as Senereseran
• Sābithat
• Hirkithen
• Yanayarta
• Keth Shondren
• Nenikrath
• Larakkas
• Lagan-Uvior
• The Maggot God
• Marometh
• Ashgemoth
• Saradsara
• Tenthis
• Beryatha
• Yāthag