Remember way back in March when I covered Mual-Tar, a lightning primordial with a striking resemblance to tapeworms? Probably not, as Fourth Edition’s content, particularly concerning the primordials, is almost fascinatingly forgettable. Nevertheless, I look back on that post from less than a year ago and judge my younger self for such naivete as thinking there would be a sane number of planar articles in Fourth Edition, or that anyone would wish me to document them so granularly. Aah, youth. Now, in our maturity, it’s time we turn to the rest of the Lords of Chaos series of articles, though fortunately there’s only three more of these to deal with. The series never really caught on, no surprise, and what it did add to the planes is largely reliant upon Fourth Edition’s cosmology. If you’re already bored with the topic, feel free to skip past this column entirely—we really are nearing the end of this edition, and if you feel like checking out until Fifth kicks in then I won’t blame you.
Following Mual-Tar’s appearance in December of 2008, the next Lords of Chaos column wouldn’t appear until May of 2010, in Dungeon #178. Peter Schaefer wrote about a new primordial named Balcoth, who was so mighty that he remained alive even after the gods decapitated him. Balcoth’s head remains trapped, but his strangely wise body (wisdom 14) “rampages, mindlessly destructive [Int 3], through the Elemental Chaos.” This part of his concept is entertaining and seems ripe for some adventure hooks, but otherwise Balcoth is pretty dull, as he’s another obsessive mage-lord of secrets. The whole unconnected body and head gimmick is really the only thing unique about him; the “vessels of lore” and “arcane cache” use of followers has some potential, but really it all just feels like a reskinned version of Vecna. Balcoth may be essentially a fire giant, but you get the sense that in a conversation he’d just give you the standard issue evil wizard spiel.
A couple years later either Michael E. Shea or Brian Cortijo revived the series in Dungeon #199 (February 2012) in order to cover Olyhydra and Yan-C-Bin—Cortijo is credited on the table of contents while Shea is credited in the article itself (seems like Shea’s work to me, but my god were these magazines a mess during Fourth Edition). Both of these individuals had been covered plenty before, which meant that there wasn’t a ton of new information here besides statistics… and, of course, Fourth Edition-specific nonsense lore. Because the archomentals are now primordials, they’re both trapped because that’s how primordials like to roll; apparently the gods of this edition are all like Batman and have a fetish for crippling their enemies but leaving them alive. Olhydra is now “banished to her coral keep, which Melora cast down into a wide chasm in a black sea in the Elemental Chaos,” while Yan-C-Bin is “exiled,” which is to say stuck in the Pillar of Wind castle but able to move it pretty much wherever he wants. As a result of their imprisonment, the primary interaction PCs will have with these primordials is with their cults, and while the authors tend to do a decent job of defining these, it’s a bit hard to care because these rarely feel revelatory. Balcoth fared the best in this regard due to his weird soul-sucking magic thing, which though cliched at least was less obvious than that the cultists of a wind deity like wind and of a water deity are all into water. It’s the type of material that no one really needs to have filled in, as we can make those connections ourselves.
A year later Shea contributed a similar entry on the final archomental, Cryonax, in the March 2013 issue of Dragon (#421). It’s superior to the earlier article largely because Cryonax is simply a more interesting entity, but also because Shea decided to make his imprisonment a central part of his identity. Cryonax is bound by adamantine chains in the midst of a glacial mountain range. There, “a pool of blood formed of drips from Cryonax’s wounds. In the depths of this pool is a portal leading to the mortal world. There, mixed with the ancient ice of Cryonax’s glacier, the blood provides power to the prince’s mortal followers.” This provides for a much more interesting relationship between the deity and his followers, and this link between them serves as an easy plot hook and reason for including the cultists. In general, Cryonax feels far less reliant upon older lore and is all the better for it, to the point that I prefer everything about this version of him to earlier ones except for the whole Dawn War business. Maybe for your own campaign you come up with your own reason for his imprisonment that isn’t quite so obnoxious.
That’s all we have for actual Lords of Chaos articles, but while we’re here I thought I’d stick in a surprise Codex of Betrayal piece that I missed before. In my defense, that’s because in issue #428 of Dragon (October 2013) it’s listed as a Channel Divinity article in the table of contents; this was a similar series focusing on the deities of the World Axis. Technically speaking, I should probably cover it as well, but fuck it, I really can’t be bothered. Anyhow, “Amon the Wolf” by Tim Eagon covers thelong-known but oft-neglected duke of Hell Amon, building off the sparse lore from his creation and turning him into a legitimately interesting figure.
Amon originated with so many of the named devils in 1983’s Monster Manual II, though aside from his wolf’s head atop a human body the only thing really known about him here was that he is a vassal of geryon. He would be mentioned in Faces of Evil before reappearing properly in A Paladin in Hell so that players could beat him up along the way to beating up his boss, but in none of these instances was he more than a wolflike visage for players to murder. In this new reconception of him, what’s most notable about Amon is his loyalty, which sets him apart from essentially all other devils. Amon is in fact so loyal to Geryon that he’s been avoiding his lord for decades in case Geryon wants him to stop his revenge quest against those who wronged Geryon, as Amon would never go against his lord’s explicit wishes but believes that he knows what’s right, which in this case is to lay a swath of murder across the Nine Hells. As such, a lot of space is devoted to Amon’s relationships with Geryon and also the Lords of the Nine proper. His newfound complexity is enough that sections devoted to using him as both an ally and an enemy feel warranted, which makes him a perfect antagonist for a truly Hellish campaign. It’s my favorite column we’re touching on today, despite him not being remotely a lord of chaos, and very little about it contradicts the Great Wheel’s typical D&D cosmology such that it’s easily transported into most campaigns. It’s a fun read, and I’m sorry I missed it before.
