Ok kids, time to put away your Homer and Hesiod and pick up your Ovid and Virgil. It's time to get Roman with these myths.
A lot of what we know about the "Greek Myths" comes from the Roman counterparts in Ovid's
Metamorphoses. In truth I can go on and on (and on and on) about Ovid and Metamorphoses. I could spend a couple of posts on just his influences on Shakespeare for example. But that is not the scope of OMG. I really want to look into a couple of things in this respect. How do gods grow and evolve (say from Greek and Etruscan to Roman) and how this produces our Monster Manual demons.
Let's get down to business and look at the second big demon in our D&D Pantheon and his strange origins. Of course, I can only mean
Orcus.
Hades and Pluto and Orcus and Dīs Pater
No. Not a crazy comedy from the 70s. Well, I suppose it could be. But I want to talk about the God of the Underworld. I mentioned Hades a lot in this series before. He is the God of the Underworld and was so feared that he was often never called on by name, he gains the epithet "The Rich One" and much later on "The Lord of this World" something that has also been attributed to Satan.
As Greek myths merged into Roman myths several gods were syncretized to arrive at the Roman Pluto. These include many gods of the underworld, the dead (but not death) and riches such as the Etruscan
Atia and the Roman Dīs Pater. Mixed in all of this is the Greek Horkos and Roman Orcus.
So how do we go from a God, one of the Olympians no less, to a demon AND a devil (I didn't forget about you Dispater)? Well, the thing about myth there can several, sometimes even mutually exclusive stories, and all are true. Now I have personally never cared for the
history of the Demon Prince Orcus as told in the Dead Gods book (though an otherwise great sourcebook). Orcus was once a human? Balderdash and Poppycock! Sounds like lies told by Demogorgon cultists.
Instead, I propose this. As Hades was starting his transformation to more benign Pluto he sloughed off his evil like a snake sheds an old skin. In Milton, this would have been when Lucifer first came to hell or sometime before Lucifer fell. It could be that the dæmon Horkos picked up the skin and became Orcus. OR even Horkos was killed and was filled with the evil from Hades to become Orcus. I like that better than a "fat, evil necromancer" became one of the most powerful demon princes in the game. It also ties him into the undead more and helps explain why Orcus' motivation is often to become a real god. He has "memories" of a time when he was a god.
Also, for this reason, I have a bitter rivalry between Dispater and Orcus. They both could have been created at the same time from Hades' skin of evil (if that sounds familiar,
it should). Dispater was a Fallen who encountered the remaining evil and he too has "memories" of time when he was a god.
The newest version of D&D refers to Dis/Dispater as the "foremost arms dealer" in the lower planes. I can work with that. His forces can help out the PCs in my current game against Orcus.
So we can have a Greek titan, turned demon in a rivalry with Roman godling turned demon. I have said a lot about Orcus and I am likely to say more.
Moving on from Orcus, there are a lot of creatures in the Roman myths that find the idea of demons rather well. One, in particular, is one I have mentioned before.
Vanth
Like Orcus, Vanth is another Etruscan chthonic god depicted as a demon and she adorns funerary art.
I learned about Vanth, not through mythology, but through one of my very first loves, astronomy.
Vanth is the largest moon (only moon so far) of the Trans-Neptunian Object/Dwarf Planet
Orcus. Vanth orbits Orcus in a tight precise circle and they are tidally locked. Vanth is never far from Orcus then and she always keeps her face toward her master. Vanth has a very different spectra than Orcus, so the two were not formed together like most other satellite systems. Vanth is likely a captured Kuiper Belt object. To take another page from mythology Orcus stole Vanth from another god/demon/master to be his psychopomp, maybe even from Pluto, or given her torch, from Hecate. In that case, she would be somewhat similar to the Erinyes.
Here she is for Basic-era D&D (yeah I should do AD&D, but I am on a Basic kick).
Vanth, Psychopomp of Orcus
No. Enc.: 1 (Unique)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Movement: 60’ (20’)
Fly: 240’ (80’)
Armor Class: 1 [19]
Hit Dice: 11d8+ 11 (61 hp)
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1 sword (1d10+4)
Special: Flight, Magic resistance (55%), regenerate (3 hp/round), +2 or better weapons to hit.
Save: F12
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: X
XP: 3,600
Vanth is the vassal of Orcus. Responsible for bringing him the choicest souls to be corrupted into foul undead. Vanth is never far from Orcus then and she always keeps her face toward her master.
Vanth shares a role similar to that of Charon. She brings the souls of departed to the underworld. She has a torch to light her way, a key to unlock the gates of the underworld, a scroll with the information on the deceased and a sword. According to myth Vanth appears as woman, much like an Erinyes and
described as young and vibrant.
There are other demons similar to Vanth such as Culsu, Charun and Tuchulcha.
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| Vanth |
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| Tuchulcha |
This also marks the end of the "Classical" Myths of antiquity. After this, we get into what could be called the Pagan Myths. I already did one part of the Celtic Myths, so I will need to revisit them.
