Mu-Tahn Laa
Dark Prince of Sorcery, Lord of Corruption
"I watch you. I see the hatred in your eyes, well hidden behind courtly graces. I listen. I know the terrible darkness that hides behind your well-rehearsed lies. I wait for you at the edge of sanity. I taste the pain in your mind, the yearning to end this charade. I make my home in the darkest pits of your soul. In the shadows I bide my time. I patiently wait for you to open your eyes and realize that it is by my will alone that you draw breath. For I am Mu-Tahn Laa and you are my puppet who dances to my tune."
—Mu-Tahn Laa, the Corruptor of Elements
Symbol: A six-pointed starburst on a Blackfire background
Home Plane: Mountains of Sorrow Beyond Measure
Portfolio: Sorcery, Corruption Magic, Corruption, Sorrow
Worshipers: Evil spellcasters
Favored Weapon: Dagger
Mu-Tahn Laa, known also as The Corrupter and the Prince of Dark Sorcery was the Demon Lord of Dark Magic, Change, Lies and Trickery. He was flux embodied, a demon lord who alone truly embodied the terrible energies and momentum of Chaos.
Mu-Tahn Laa's name was derivative from his true name in the Dark Tongue; possibly Mutahn'Laaneth, Lord of Change. He was the Great Sorcerer of Corruption, and Bringer of Change, for make no mistake -- endless, broiling change is the truest nature of Chaos, and Chaos is the source of the eldritch energies that mortals, in their superstition, have named 'magic'.
What mortal can dare say that he has not desired knowledge of the mysteries of destiny, or the awesome power of corruption magic. It is Mu-Tahn Laa alone who holds the true key to this terrible knowledge, and his price is steep indeed. For his worshipers are naught but pawns in his game to outflank his fellow demon lords and to bring about the downfall of the veil itself. The Prince of Dark Sorcery rewards his followers with madness and insanity, and upon death their spirits are brought to his halls to serve him for all eternity. Yet, the Prince of Dark Sorcery does not scheme towards the accomplishment of some end, but instead, strives to create tumult and turmoil for its own sake.
Mu-Tahn Laa's is normally depicted as an immense red-skinned humanoid with three eyes and four arms. His head was said to be surrounded in a halo of blackfire. To the vicious barbarians of Narfell, he was once the Vulture God. In the dreaded East, he was known as Chen the Deceiver, and the Tuigan hordes once held that his messengers are the giant vultures of the Steppes. Yet whatever his mien and whomever his people, the Corruptor is ever viewed as the Great Schemer, a fickle, politicking demon lord who should be feared as much as he should not be trusted.
The followers of Mu-Tahn Laa hold that he once ruled from an Impossible Fortress deep within the Mountains of Sorrow Beyond Measure, one of the infinite layers of the Abyss. At its heart, within a crystalline labyrinth of inconceivable geometry, lies the Hidden Library, a hall of eternal dimensions that houses corrupt and profane knowledge from across the entire universe. Within it lies also the fabled Well of Eternity, and into its magic waters did Mu-Tahn Laa gaze for eons uncounted, searching intently for a glimpse of the clues and conundrums that will allow him to enact his ineffable schemes.
Mu-Tahn Laa possessed many sigils and symbols, though the most common is the writhing black flame. Called Blackfire, this corruption of elemental fire weakens and burns the Veil between worlds and planes. His followers were known as the Blackfire Adepts. Those few who succeeded upon that twisting path could use blackfire to open temporary portals to the Mountains of Sorrow Beyond Measure, summoning demonic creatures that did their bidding. Their potent magical abilities outlived their patron, for while Mu-Tahn Laa disappeared long ago, the Blackfire Adepts continue to study and learn to wield the corrupted energies of the missing demon lord.
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The Cult of Mu-Tahn Laa
Though the servitors of Mu-Tahn Laa are not as directly mighty or savagely courageous as those of bloodthirsty Baphomet, nor possessing the undead resiliency of the followers of Orcus, the might of the Dark Prince of Corruption was not to be measured with means so crude as the physical. The skies above Mu-Tahn Laa's warbands writhed and burned with unnatural power. Their banners screech with corrupt energies and seethe and crackle with dark purple bolts of lightning that brought ruination unto the enemy and black fires that burned holes between the world and the Abyss. The blades and armor of the Chosen of Mu-Tahn Laa glowed with this blackfire.
Though Mu-Tahn Laa gathered fewer devotees from amongst the brute tribes of Narfell and the Horde than the War-God Tempus, he still occupied a highly significant role in the lives of the warriors of the North. The worshipers of Mu-Tahn Laa gathered in hidden covens by which they use every means to increase their own personal standing and spread the power of their patron. These Blackfire Adepts grew into an organization that has lived on past the likely destruction of their patron.
Most vulnerable to his temptations are mages, scholars and other educated members of society who labor after the search for knowledge, whatever the cost to their morals or sanity. Most of these cults are led by Magisters -- the most accomplished magician in the ranks, and are divided are so many layers of affiliation, each highly complex, that the only individual in the cult likely to know the identity of all its members is the Magister himself.
The tribes of the North who venerated Mu-Tahn Laa believed him to be the lord of the sky, and that by entering a trance-like state, they too could soar the heavens alongside him, communing with him and learning his will. It was he, they maintained, that understood the hearts and minds of men better than his fellow Demon Lords. Mu-Tahn Laa's favored totem beast was the giant vulture, and it was in his aspect of the vulture that he was worshiped amongst the Nars. Such animals were said to be his eyes in the mortal realm, and to see one was considered an omen amongst those who profess to serve him. Whether one for good or ill, none could say, for Mu-Tahn Laa delighted in misdirection and subterfuge, and the only limit to his capriciousness was his own anarchic imagination. Mu-Tahn Laa's sacred number was nine, and this was reflected in the organizations of his cults and warbands, who often congregate in multiples or divisors of nine, and also in the number of syllables in a servitor demon's true name. His favored colors are red and black.
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SLAUGHTERGARDE’S HISTORY
The story of Slaughtergarde begins almost a thousand years ago, when a sorcerous demon prince named Mu-Than Laa set his sights on the millions of souls on the Material Plane. As he gathered demon hordes and depraved mortals to his layer of the Abyss, a place known as the Mountains of Sorrow Beyond Measure, he began plotting.
Mu-Tahn Laa quickly reached an impasse. The energy required to sustain a gate to the Material Plane large enough to march an army through was incalculable. Even if he could accumulate enough power to create such a gate, the forces of good could quickly thwart his invasion by attacking the gate on the Material Plane, where defending it would be difficult. Mu-Tahn Laa’s frustration was so great that even the screams of the innocent provided no succor. He brooded on his black throne, contemplating other means to reach the Material Plane.
In a flash of inspiration, Mu-Tahn Laa conceived a fiendish plan. He cast off his despondency and started a series of eldritch trials, using his rival’s minions (and sometimes his rivals themselves) as experiments.
After decades of research, Mu-Tahn Laa’s efforts bore fruit. If his cults could provide enough energy in the form of souls who were honored and then sacrificed, Mu-Tahn Laa could actually transpose part of the Abyss and an area of the Material Plane known as Vaasa. Several square miles of the Mountains of Sorrow Beyond Measure could become part of Vaasa. The corresponding territory in Vaasa would be part of the Abyss forever.
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The transposition would be a one-way trip, so Mu-Tahn Laa began to create a mighty Fortress, packing it with his armies and enough supplies for an extended campaign in Vaasa. Mindful of the risk of failure, the demon prince thought it prudent to build some smaller gates connecting the fortress to the Abyss. He couldn’t retreat an army back through those gates, but he and his personal retinue should be able to travel between the two planes unimpeded.
After years of toil, Mu-Tahn Laa’s fortress, which he named Slaughtergarde, was ready. Mortal cults, responding to whispered promises of dark power, began gathering in a remote mountain valley. Demons were coming to Vaasa, and they were coming to stay.
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When Mu-Tahn Laa transposed Slaughtergarde to Vaasa, he found an army of mortals, modrons, and angels waiting eagerly to cast his invading force back to the Abyss. At first, the prospect of battle delighted the demon prince, and he ordered his armies forward into battle. It is said that the very sky shook that day, and the Beaumaris River ran dark with mortal blood, celestial essence, and demonic ichor.
As the sun set on the first day of the Battle of Slaughtergarde, Mu-Tahn Laa noticed a faint pull on the eldritch weavings responsible for Slaughtergarde’s transposition. Black obelisks that dotted Vaasa were siphoning away the power of the demon prince’s magic, threatening to throw his entire fortress back to the Abyss. Mu-Tahn Laa ordered his soldiers to destroy the obelisks quickly, lest his invasion end in disaster.
But Mu-Tahn Laa’s host was mad with bloodlust, and the chaotic warriors scorned his orders. As the obelisks siphoned more of its power away, Slaughtergarde began to break apart. At first, it crumbled around the edges, but as the forces of good redoubled their efforts, the entire fortress began to quake as if about to erupt. Before sunrise, in an upheaval loud enough to be heard across a continent, Slaughtergarde exploded. The majority of its wreckage hurtled across the void between the planes to its proper place in the Abyss.
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In order to transpose Vaasa, Mu-Tahn Laa created an entirely new fortress called Slaughtergarde using some pieces of the Impossible Fortress as needed. Incomplete notes from the scrolls speak of many sections of the new fortress, including an armory section, the Paths of Corruption (which seems to be some type of temple or shrine), and the Lesser Laboratory. Barracks, mustering halls, and fortifications seemed to abound in Slaughtergarde, but descriptions of these are cursory at best. It's possible that they didn't weigh much in the demon lord's mind.
One particular piece of Slaughtergarde, mentioned time and again is the fortress-tower of Threshold. It seems that Threshold was the focus point for the Transposition. It came through first and brought the rest of Slaughtergarde along with it. Piecing together the varying accounts - it is our belief that Threshold was, and is, the site where Castle Perilous stood, and it is very likely that the dungeons that still exist under Castle Perilous may include pieces of Slaughtergarde.
Mu-Tahn Laa's seat of power was a vast natural cavern which housed his throne room and an entire city, known as Iz. There he ruled the Impossible Fortress under the Mountains of Sorrow and Madness. Here the scrolls describe some members of his court. His seneschal was a powerful and unique pit fiend known as The Storm King, Khorramzadeh, and the general of his armies was the unique marilith knowns as Ylleshka, who, according to the descriptions, had two entwined bodies and heads with one tail. Each body with the expected six arms of a marilith.
He was served by a unique demon known as Deskari, Lord of the Locust Hosts. From the accounts, we have determined that Deskari was a nascent demon lord who ruled the skies above the Mountains of Sorrow. Some of the scrolls show Mu-Tahn Laa's distrust of Deskari and various plots of Deskari's to claim part of Mu-Tahn Laa's domain for himself. Deskari himself may have some connection to the Demon Prince Pazuzu and may have been a plant for the more powerful demon prince to keep track of an up-and-coming rival. It seems that aside from normal demonic backstabbing, Deskari was dutiful in fulfilling Mu-Tahn Laa's demands.
Mu-Tahn Laa apparently dealt with other demon lords as well, and negotiations with Bahamut and Orcus are mentioned specifically in the scrolls. It is possible that these two more-powerful demon lords sought to use the Corrupter in their own plans, or possibly that the Corrupter was playing all three of the greater demon lords against one another.
There are a few more hints at things in the scrolls. A powerful demonic assassin/infiltrator named Mingho; a weapon, possibly artifact level, known as the Demonblade. Something known as Black Ice Well, possible a site or location of importance, maybe a vault of some type from the bits we were able to salvage. The Black Vault, The Crimson Isle, the Ebon Fane. We know nothing of these beyond names.
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Of note on some of the newer scrolls, written after the invasion. A trio of adventurers are named, the wizard Blarnstaff, the High Priest Tudolph and the Paladin Larson. They seem to have been part of the forces that engaged Slaughtergarde in Vaasa. Larson and Tudolph may have both been Triadic, or Tyr, worshipers. Larson was said to wield the Sword of Karith, from the accounts, a holy avenger. From the notes, their base of operations was the Meridian Valley. During a demon attack, they and the attacking demons disappeared. It is possible that the attack ended in mutual destruction, but the accounts are unclear.
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We took the liberty of translating the drow priestesses journal and letter for you Master Tyengandrill. The map which is thought to indicate the location of the Slaughtergarde Armory indicates a “wizard”. The only wizard that would make sense in that regard is the guildless wizard Garath Blackhand, who goes by the moniker of Mistmaster as of late. The crudely drawn mountains must be the Western Galenas and do somewhat conform to the map which the Academy possesses of that area in Vaasa. This Mistmaster is unpredictable and prone to ambition. Any interactions with him should be done with the understanding that he has been rumored to sacrifice companions before to further his plans. His acolytes include the Tel-quessir Corum Stormeyes and Jinst Farreacher, both fanatically loyal to their lord.
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