Dakoleth
The Conqueror Demon
Areas of Concern fire and conquest
Edicts seek to rule and control others, destroy your enemies with overwhelming power, set fires
Anathema show mercy to your enemies, extinguish a fire, willingly give up power or control
Divine Attribute Strength or Constitution
Realm The Maw
Allies Ases
Enemies Duona, Shydar, Yumos
Temples pits, chasms, abandoned buildings ravaged by fire
Worshippers arsonists, conquerors, pillagers, tyrants
Sacred Animal gorilla
Sacred Colors white and pink
Devotee Benefits
Cleric Spells 1st: breathe fire, 3rd: fireball, 4th: wall of fire
Divine Font harm
Divine Sanctification must choose unholy
Divine Skill Intimidation
Domains destruction, fire, might, tyranny
Favored Weapon claw or greatsword
After the Great Cataclysm, Nerilia's connection to the other planes in the multiverse was severed. Only the River of Souls maintained a feeble tie to the planet, allowing the dead to move on to the afterlife. Ever since the world was ruined, nothing has entered or left, with the exception of Dakoleth.
Dakoleth is a Demon Lord of fire and conquest, who came to Nerilia from the Outer Rifts, hoping to conquer it. He appears as a titanic, pink-skinned gorilla with long white fur only on his back, head, and the tops of his arms, which end in razor-sharp claws. When angered, his hair and eyes come alight in white flames, and the fire he conjures is the same pure white. Even when otherwise subdued, Dakoleth's eyes glow softly.
Divine Symbols & Sigils
Dakoleth's primary symbol is a simple emblem of a white flame. His worshippers use the subtlety of such a symbol, which can often be easily disguised or hidden from those outside of the faith, to identify each other and locations where his worship is accepted.
Tenets of Faith
Dakoleth's commands to his followers are quite simple, and he does not have a list of specific codes to obey. Worshippers are to conquer in his name and attempt to undermine the power of the other gods who oppose him, all so that one day he might emerge from the Maw and take his "rightful" place as ruler of Nerilia. The first command is quite achievable, and many ambitious warmongers follow Dakoleth, spreading his influence to the lands they conquer, but such nations rarely last. The second is a lot more difficult. Only one mortal is known to have ever slain a god, but followers of Dakoleth often infiltrate, attack, or otherwise challenge organizations dedicated to his enemies.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
In his life as a mortal, Dakoleth was a mighty warlord on a distant world. This world had very little magic, but Dakoleth had the unique ability to conjure flames, an ability which grew stronger the more battles he won and people he subdued. He took joy in his depraved actions—not the battles, but the aftermath: the pillaging, burning, and subjugation of conquered settlements. He enjoyed the feeling of winning without challenge, then ruling over the suffering survivors in their destroyed homes.
Dakoleth was a powerful and victorious warrior, but even his allies could not condone his carnage forever; even the worst of them saw that there was no point in conquering a village only to burn it down. By this point, however, his power had grown too much. He no longer needed to rely on a king's authority to control his men, he could cow them with fire and spur them on with the promise of the sick pleasures of conquest that he knew all too well. Dakoleth turned his armies on his own people, aiming to rule over his entire world.
Dakoleth's enemies were faced with nearly impossible odds. They could not match his magical power with physical prowess, as he was equally skilled in both, and worse, he had begun imbuing his followers with some of the same magic. Regardless, with the fate of the world at stake, they had no choice. Millions died facing only thousands of dakoleth's men, and even when standing alone, Dakoleth could ruin entire armies singlehandedly. Yet, still, his enemies fought, bravely sacrificing their lives because there was no other option, and eventually, he was slain. This war significantly reduced the population of the planet and left a permanent scar in its surface, where nothing but ash remained, but the world's people were free of Dakoleth's evil and could begin to recover.
For the rest of the multiverse, however, this was only the beginning. Dakoleth's soul was judged and he was sent to the Outer Rifts, where he was reincarnated as a demon. His soul was so tainted and his sins so numerous that he formed directly as a Balor—a fire demon, and the most powerful of all the "ordinary" varieties of demon. His rampaging conquest continued, this time against his demonic kin in the endless Outer Rifts. Very quickly, he gained even more power, growing into a nascent demon lord and ruling over his realm in the Outer Rifts, the Valey of Fire.
In the infinite realms of the Outer Rifts, Dakoleth could conquer endlessly, growing his territory forever and subjugating more and more of the less powerful demons around him. In spite of this, he remained unsatisfied. He craved to sweep his armies over an entire world, reducing it to smoldering ruins under his sole command, but, as powerful as he was, he remained trapped in the Outer Rifts, its unending corruption both a home and a prison. He needed a connection to the Universe, something he could use to move between the planes and into a new world.
Eventually, he got his wish. Shortly before the Great Cataclysm, a group of adventurers from Nerilia came to the Outer Rifts, searching for knowledge that, ironically, could have been the key to saving their world. They left something behind, however. Something from their home, and therefore connected to it. Within several centuries, the item had found its way into Dakoleth's hands. Normally, this alone would have been enough for him to open a gateway to Nerilia, but by that time the Great Cataclysm had long since come and gone, and getting there at all should have been impossible. Such was Dakoleth's hunger for conquest, though, that, given time, he managed to do so anyway, ripping a hole in the fabric of the cosmos by sheer force of will.
Dakoleth emerged on Nerilia in a place called the Maw, a gaping hole in the planet's surface miles deep, its farthest reaches diving well below the bottom of the Darklands. The Maw is where demons are formed on Nerilia, almost like a small piece of the Outer Rifts, a festering corruption defiling the world. Dakoleth crowned himself king of the Maw and its demons, and the concentrated suffusion of pure evil energy there finally completed his transformation into a Demon Lord. Emboldened by this new power, Dakoleth marched his demonic forces onto the surface, laying waste to what little there was to conquer, but he soon found himself in the territory of Ilusha, the Pale Worm, and was no match for the greater god's power. A few fragmentary legends still live on from this mythic battle.
Dakoleth was almost killed by Ilusha, and he quickly retreated back to the depths of the Maw. He had never directly faced a being more powerful than him, and, a coward at heart, he was afraid. As Nerilia slowly healed from the effects of the Cataclysm, more gods emerged, intensifying Dakoleth's reluctance to leave his new home. To this day, he resides in the depths of the Maw, awaiting the day the gods of Nerilia die and he can claim the world as his own.
Dakoleth's Favored Weapon
As a mortal, Dakoleth's primary weapon was a flamberge greatsword, its wavy yet symmetrical blade resembling a flame. Dakoleth, like all who pass through the River of Souls and are reborn, retains only fragmented memories of his mortal life, and has fought only with his claws for millennia. Nevertheless, the greatsword remains the favored weapon of Dakoleth and his followers.
The sword itself still exists on Dakoleth's home planet, and some of his power remains inside it, which has turned it into a powerful artifact.
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