Thursday, April 4, 2013

D is for Demogorgon and Demodand

Demogorgon

Reminds me of Eldritch Wizardry's cover
Every D&D players knows about Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons.  He made his appearance in Eldritch Wizardry and has been in every monster book since.  His popularity is second only to Orcus.
In 4e his story gets expanded to include this little treat, he has two head because his head gets split in two by a good god.  The two halve regenerate into two seperate heads. Cool, and creepy.  At the same time I was working on my own version of Demogorgon for Unisystem.  You can click to read it, I think it is worth the read to be honest.  I even considered reposting it for today, but that seemed like cheating.

As interesting as his official background is and even the one I created is, Demogorgon has a much more interesting history. The first time I met him outside of D&D was in Milton's Paradise Lost.
And by them stood Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name of Demogorgon.
- Milton, Paradise Lost.
He meets Lucifer in a void area that isn't Hell but a place where Chaos and Night rule.  Sounds like the Abyss to me.

Another version of Demogorgon comes from writers Christopher Golden and Thomas E. Sniegoski in their Menagerie series.  This Demogorgon is more like my Leviathan or even Galactus. The series is on going (in theory) so we have not seen the heroes face off against the Demogorgon yet.  I am looking forward to it.

If I were to redo Demogorgon I'd keep most of the background I created, but maybe make him more monstrous, maybe something like a two-headed dragon, only really freaking huge.  Something like the Tarrasque is now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogorgon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogorgon_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)

And not to forget The Temple of Demogorgon.

Demodands
These guys are bastard children of demondom.  Not demons, not devils not even daemons. They appeared first in the Monster Manual II for AD&D and seem to based on the Deodands of Jack Vance or even the classical use of the term.
For my uses these are demons that have been put together from the dead scraps of other demons.  So even among demons they are reviled and despised.
No idea if I'll do three different sub races or not.  But I like the idea of them being put together from scraps of other demons.

4 comments:

L. Diane Wolfe said...

There seems to be enough reptilian features in the one pictured to make him more like a two-headed dragon.

Mike Welham said...

I liked the demodands from MMII, and I never knew their origins until I read your blog entry.

Shannon Lawrence said...

Freaky, I like the demogorgon! I could definitely see him as more dragon-like, or any number of things.

Shannon at The Warrior Muse

Katherine Nabity said...

I'm currently running the Savage Tide adventure path for my husband so I'm all about Demogorgon these days. I'd forgotten he was mentioned in Paradise Lost.