Obscure demon lords

[BOZ]

OK, in this case, I'm referring specifically to those demon lords on that big list found in the original 1983 Monster Manual II. Nearly all of them spent the next nearly 25 years completely ignored, until James Jacobs and Erik Mona decided to put Paizo's license to write canon D&D material to good use.

Dagon and Obox-ob got pretty good descriptions in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, and the Demonomicon of Iggwilv series, so I'm not asking about them.

Most of them, including Ahazu, Aldinach, Ansitif, Ardat, Areex, Aseroth, Asima, Astaroth, Azael, Bayemon, Bechard, Baltazo, Cabiri, Gresil, Mastiphal, Munkir, Nekir, Socothbenoth, Soneillon, and Verin, were mentioned in FC I and the Demonicon series, and other places, anywhere from a brief name-drop to as much as a few paragraphs.

Several of them, including Abraxas, Ahrimanes, Alrunes, Anarazel, Azazel, Barbu, Charun, Eblis, Laraie, and Nocticula, as far as I know did not receive any attention outside of getting mentioned in the appendix tables in the back of FC I. Unsurprisingly, when you're trying to cover that much material, it's hard to cram a mention of everyone in there!

Do you know which D&D sources mention these demon lords, and what they say? I probably know a lot of them, but I want to see what you know so I can compare.

 

[the Jester]

Several of them, including Abraxas, Ahrimanes, Alrunes, Anarazel, Azazel, Barbu, Charun, Eblis, Laraie, and Nocticula, as far as I know did not receive any attention outside of getting mentioned in the appendix tables in the back of FC I. Unsurprisingly, when you're trying to cover that much material, it's hard to cram a mention of everyone in there!

I'm not sure about D&D sources, but Azazel's in the new X-Men movie...

 

[Relique du Madde]

I'm not sure about D&D sources, but Azazel's in the new X-Men movie...

The Marvel universe version of Azazel was created in 2003 as a retcon to explain why Nightcrawler looks like a demon ("Because his dad is one!").

However, as far as DND is concerned, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those demon lords appeared in the Fiend Folio or in some Plane Scape material.

 

[Wiseblood]

IIRC the old school DMG had stats for a lot of stuff in the back. Have you checked there?

As an aside retconning Nightcrawler as a half demon is kinda like saying he's not a mutant. That sucks. The flip side of that suggests that his power is supernatural.

Plane Scape did have a bunch of stuff too. ^^

 

[the Jester]

However, as far as DND is concerned, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those demon lords appeared in the Fiend Folio or in some Plane Scape material.

IIRC the old school DMG had stats for a lot of stuff in the back. Have you checked there?

FF only had Lolth. PS I am less familiar with but I believe that Boz is all up in that stuff.

The DMG only had the overview stats for monsters from the MM.

The Marvel universe version of Azazel was created in 2003 as a retcon to explain why Nightcrawler looks like a demon ("Because his dad is one!").

As an aside retconning Nightcrawler as a half demon is kinda like saying he's not a mutant. That sucks. The flip side of that suggests that his power is supernatural.

Yeah, that's all after I stopped reading comics regularly, but from what I understand "Nightcrawler is a demon!!" has never, ever been referred to again in the comics. Most fans and X-creators alike just kind of wince and duck their heads when it comes up.

I mean, sheesh! What a stupid way to invalidate the whole point of Nightcrawler- "He looks like a demon, but he's just as human as you!"

 

[Garnfellow]

Your best bet for more details would be the Gord novels. There are lots of bits and pieces scattered throughout. Several demon lords in the novels have names that are suspiciously close to names on the list and are probably one and the same. For example, Vuron (the adviser to Graz'zt) sounds pretty much like Verin to me. Just squint a bit and the connections become clear.

The first two Gord novels were published by TSR. After Gygax left the company the next five were published by New Infinities. My understanding is that Gygax retained the rights to use any character named in the 1st two novels, like Graz'zt, but any other TSR IP was off-limits. So Gygax had to come up with alternative names for demon lords like Lolth (Arachne) or Fraz-Urb'luu (Var-Az-Hloo).

 

[BOZ]

I really need to get around to reading those Gord novels one of these days.

 

[Greg K]

Yeah, that's all after I stopped reading comics regularly, but from what I understand "Nightcrawler is a demon!!" has never, ever been referred to again in the comics. Most fans and X-creators alike just kind of wince and duck their heads when it comes up.

I wince and duck my head at everything that I hear following the Mutant Massacre (FF v. X-Men excluded). For the most part, this applies to almost everything Marvel comics except Busiek's Avengers

 

[James Jacobs]

Apart from my Demonomicon articles in Dragon (many of which have a lot of demony easter eggs and stealth references to various demon lords, old and new), you'll probably also want to check out the Savage Tide Adventure Path—particularly the last four adventures, which all take place on and around the Abyss. Ahazu, in particular, has a lot of stuff going on in one of those last four adventures, as do quite a few other demon lords.

In addition, you might want to check out "Book of the Damned II: Lords of Chaos." It's not D&D, of course (it's Pathfinder), but it's compatible with 3rd edition and I tried to write it so that it works well with Green Ronin's "Book of Fiends" AND with WotC's "Fiendish Codex I." Meaning, there's not a lot of overlap, but there is some details on demon lords from that old MM2 table whose names come from real-world mythology... particularly Abraxas, Nocticula, and Socothbenoth, but also a few other mythological demons that never appeared on the MM2 list like Lamashtu and Haagenti.

 

[Wycen]

Aldinach was written up in Gary Gygax's Necropolis mega-adventure. I think if you comb the text you might find another mention of a forgotten demon lord, but maybe it was a devil.

As pointed out the Gord novels have some mention.

I suspect some of the names are also mentioned in passing within the text of others, like concubines. Cabiri seems to feel like that name has been used in 3E conversation sometime in the past.

For anyone who remembers the Rose Estes DnD novels based on Mika the Wolf Nomad, did his demonic hand's original owner ever get mentioned? Maybe that was a demon lord on the list as well.