Obox-ob

Obox-ob was an obyrith demon lord of poisons and verminous creatures. He was an eldritch being from a long forgotten era before the tanar'ri demons and the Prince of Demons before Demogorgon.

"Ancient am I, ancient and worthy of your fealty. Swear allegiance to me and I will tell you... everything about the secret Abyss."

- Obox-ob

Description
Obox-ob was a nightmarish entity, seemingly a cross between a backwards scorpion and a monstrous millipede, with clusters of chitinous, arachnoid limbs ending in deadly talons, erratically clambering about his distended form. The places where his three-faced head and three, massive tails should be were reversed, although both ends were equipped with wicked stingers. His tail edges were jagged and dripped a black venom while his hideous visage, supported by a thick neck stalk, had a hollow, corkscrew-shaped spike at the end of his red tongue. His three faces gave him three sets of malicious, crimson eyes and a vertical maw that housed his tongue.

Personality
Once one of the most reviled and powerful residents of the Abyss, the Prince of Vermin's primal fury had only grown alongside the cravings for his former glory. Even his own layer was not safe from his rage-fueled rampages and he frequently brought ruin upon his own servitors. His hatred for the tanar'ri, to which his former position was bestowed upon and who betrayed their masters, ran unimaginably deep and he sought no less than their utter extinction. That wasn't to say however that his hatred ended at the tanar'ri; Obox-ob sought to bring about the annihilation of all things, it was just that his ire was most directly pointed at the current rulers of the Abyss.

If Demogorgon were to grow weakened or be defeated, either by Obox-ob's hand or another, the Prince of Vermin would quickly attempt to reclaim his status, sending increasingly powerful waves of obyriths to attack the Gaping Maw. If allowed to retake his position as Prince of Demons, the tanar'ri would quickly fade away as the obyriths emerged from and retook the Abyss, infesting the Astral Sea and spreading like a virulent plague throughout the multiverse. Until he could return to his prime however, Obox-Ob's plans for vengeance would have to wait.

Powers
As a being of chaos incarnate, Obox-Ob's very presence eroded sanity and poisoned the mind. His aberrant form inflicted mind-rending nightmares on those that looked upon it and instilled a permanent sense of entomophobic dread within the victim, only curable by the most powerful spells and casters. Even hearing the deafening drone caused by the movements of his ancient armor could cause temporary confusion from the sheer, chaotic cacophony of the shrieking screams.

Rather than poison, his tongue contained raw chaos matter which he could implant into the flesh of other beings. The entropic power slowly consumed the unfortunate target's body and soul, until they were utterly destroyed with only magic like dispel chaos delaying the process and the strongest of restorative magic bringing back the lost soul without the degradation continuing. He also possessed telekinetic powers and the ability to create symbols of insanity.

The Prince of Vermin also possessed power over lower lifeforms, able to summon pestilent swarms and enormous arthropods. His more powerful abilities allowed him to turn objects into massive insectoids, and the venom in his tails drained the minds of those he stung until they succumbed and transformed into giant, fiendish scorpions. All of the victim's memories were erased and only wish or miracle could return them to their previous form, and even then their intellects were still in a ruined state.

Combat
Obox-ob was a vicious opponent that relished melee, using his numerous natural armaments and telekinetic powers to destroy his enemies, charge them off cliffs, and ram them into solid objects. Although he'd use his powers to call in gigantic scorpions early on, he generally reserved his spell-like abilities for enemies he couldn't reach, an unlikely situation as he could scuttle and fly with frightening speed. Having once suffered a near-death experience, he was loathed to take unnecessary risks given the incredible setbacks they could lead to.

Divine Realm
Obox-ob's original domain was the Blood Shallows, a marshy realm filled with large hills. While the color of the skies and clouds were reversed, the atmosphere being white and the clouds being blue, the water itself was blood-red and dangerously acidic. He had long since been forced to abandon that layer and flee into one of the deepest depths of the Abyss, the 663 layer of the Abyss, Zionyn, so remote and uninhabitable that he could maintain unquestioned influence within it.

Consisting of rugged wastes and seas of reeking resin, the infested layer was swarming with ekolids, endless plagues of fiendish vermin, horrific abominations and obyriths unseen throughout the rest of the Abyss. The ekolids, unusually, created complex, hideous hive cities from the harvested ocean ooze and the corpses of a vast range of exotic creatures used as incubators. Nightmarish cathedrals, temples, and towers constructed from the preserved bodies of terrified victims could be seen throughout their cities, all pleasing monuments to Obox-Ob and his unholy wrath despite his tendency to destroy his own domain.

Activities
Obox-ob's primary concern was recovering from his diminished state in order to reestablish himself as the Prince of Demons. He carefully observed his cults on the Material Plane, waiting for an opportunity to grow in power.

Relationships
Obox-Ob was potentially the one being that Demogorgon could be said to fear, to the point where even an aspect of the former Prince of Demons would demoralize him. Obox-ob held unbridled hatred for Demogorgon and sought his demise for stealing his title.

Despite being a tanar'ri himself, the demon lord Kostchtchie sought to forge an alliance with Obox-ob, as the stubborn lord hated the tanar'ri and refused to acknowledge himself as anything other than a frost giant. An alliance between them seemed unlikely, however, given the Prince of Vermin's tendency to devour visitors before giving them a chance to speak and the Prince of Wrath's own impatience hindering diplomacy.

Obox-ob's relation with Dagon, a fellow obyrith lord, was surrounded by rumors. Dagon served as the hated Demogorgon's oracle, and some believed that is was only through secrets shared by the obyrith that he managed to remain Prince of Demons so long. Some whispers claimed that Obox-ob had urged his tanar'ri servant Lascer to make a pact with the Prince of the Depths, allowing his pawn to inhabit the Shadowsea in his half-alive fortress. Others said that Lascer was actively fighting against Dagon, and hoped to one day kill him in his lair with his small army of assassins. Whatever the case, Dagon had yet to move against Lascer, perhaps because he didn't fear him in the slightest or possibly because of the tanar'ri assassin's conection to the former Prince of Demons.

There was also the unknowable elder evil Tharizdun, who shared Obox-ob's desire for destruction and who the Prince of Vermin would help be released from his prison if possible.

Worshipers
Outside of the ekolids, Obox-ob was the patron of those who saw divinity in vermin and whose cults dwelt in deserts of ancient ruins where they could be close to his sacred creatures, the scorpions. Although they were a powerful force on many worlds, his cultists had to operate in the shadows after a near-victory and humiliating defeat where his worshipers failed to draw a Material world into the Abyss. By disrupting the magical flow of the ritual at an important phase, the heroes of the realm foiled his attempt to use the world as power to ascend, forcing Obox-Ob and his followers to act more cautiously.

History
Obox-ob was in fact the first and most powerful obyrith to rise from the primeval chaos of the Abyss. It had become common knowledge in the Abyss that Obox-Ob was the former Prince of Demons during the Age before Ages when obyriths ruled, and whose title was stolen from him by the Queen of Chaos and gifted to tanar'ri, Miska the Wolf Spider. Although many of his aspects tried to escape, they were slaughtered by the Queen, except for one that hid within Zionyn until the situation had cooled down. After skulking for eons as a shadow of his former self, he left the layer for the first time to discover that he, and the rule of the obyriths, was a thing of the past.

Less known was that a second aspect of Obox-Ob had survived by imprisoning itself within its original home to escape the Queen's wrath. While safe from the Queen of Chaos, it was unable to free itself, allowing newer demons and petty obyriths to squabble over the land while he remained the unseen 'lord' of the layer. Few beings, such as a partially insane baernaloth, knew of this other self.

Obox-ob's first meeting with a human, a planar explorer that was caught on his second expedition to Zionyn, was torturous and brutal. Using an unspeakable method that left him with rapiers wired to his hands and broken glass piercing his feet, he transformed the human into his tanar'ri minion and used his human form as a scout to investigate the activities of other demon lords before he was caught in Graz'zt's palace. Since then, Obox-ob modified him with amphibious abilities and seemed to be training the former human Lascer as a slayer of tanar'ri.

In 1376 DR, a settlement of the Torillian Underdark, Oaxatupa, was attacked by the Swordbelt Alliance. The tlincallis of Oaxatupa wished to get revenge on the surface-dwellers, and attacked both Amn and Murannheim. Obox-Ob sent his minions to aid the tlincallis via a portal from the Abyss.