Ityak-Ortheel

Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater, was a horrific abomination and one of the Elder Eternal Evils of Abeir-Toril.

Description
Ityak-Ortheel vaguely resembled a turtle when seen from a distance, but its actual appearance was much worse. It had a granite-hard, domed carapace in diameter, and three club-footed legs, each of which were comparable in width to an ancient oak trunk. Below the carapace was a moist, soft body with a massive hole in it that served as the mouth, though lacking teeth; it instead used cartilage plates to smash any prey to pulp. The body was capable of expanding to a massive width, or compressing and elongating into a probing snout. Some 40 tentacles, each in length, ringed the mouth, and each tentacle was covered in suckers to help hold onto prey.

Behavior
Ityak-Ortheel was a dumb creature driven primarily by its ravenous hunger for elves, and secondarily by its hatred for all living beings.

Abilities
Despite its ungainly appearance, Ityak-Ortheel was surprisingly fast. And though it lacked ears or eyes, it could somehow detect creatures around it and determine which ones were elves.

Ityak-Ortheel was wholly immune to damage caused by acid or cold; it was unaffected by hold monster, fear, any charm magic, illusions, psionics, and death magic. The legs, tentacles, and mouth were vulnerable to fire, which it would avoid by withdrawing into its shell.

"Slaying" Ityak-Ortheel on the Material plane only meant that it was destroyed for a decade, after which it reformed in the Abyss. It could only truly be slain under conditions similar to those that would be needed to slay a demipower, such as being killed on its homeplane.

However, Ityak-Ortheel could be banished from the Material plane by means of casting a simple modification of teleport without error, dispel evil, banishment, or dismissal spell. This modified spell had to be cast on it after it entered an area delineated by one triangle inscribed within another triangle.

Combat
Ityak-Ortheel attacked and hunted primarily with its tentacles, although it was capable of kicking with its legs. Any creature that wound up in its mouth was quickly crushed.

Ecology
Ityak-Ortheel dwelt in a mire-choked lair in primeval sludge deep in the Abyss. It could only reach the Material plane when sent there by a deity (most often Malar).

Ityak-Ortheel could ingest basically anything, but only derived sustenance from elven bodies and spirits; though it was speculated that it could also gain sustenance from orcs in a like manner. It could go centuries between meals without difficulty, but some theorized that it would die if starved for several millennia.

History
Ityak-Ortheel emerged in the distant past from a pool of mingled blood from both Corellon and Gruumsh after one of their battles with each other. Unnoticed, at the time, by any of the greater powers, it fled to the Abyss, from where it became known throughout recorded history as a plague upon the elves.

At some point millennia before the 1300s DR, Ityak-Ortheel came upon the influence of Malar, who took to sending it to elven communities on Faerûn every century. In response to this and other dangers, the elves created a special gate called the Fey-Alamtine in the kingdom of Synnoria. This gate could be accessed from anywhere in Faerûn by use of the enchanted platinum triangles called Alamtine triangles, one of which was given to the leader of each elven community. Therefore, whenever the Elf-Eater appeared, the elves could escape to Synnoria.

However, a few years before 1365 DR, Ityak-Ortheel managed to touch the Alamtine triangle of the leader of the Thy-Tach elves. Shortly thereafter, in the Year of the Sword itself, Malar managed to use that triangle and others to divine the location of the Fey-Alamtine. He promptly unleashed Ityak-Ortheel on Synnoria through the gate, resulting in the destruction of the Fey-Alamatine, Chrysalis, and Argen-Tellirynd, and the ravaging of much of that kingdom, before a human princess managed to banish it back to the Abyss.

In 1371 DR, Malar, with the aid of Lloth, Ghaunadaur, and a renegade sun elf named Kymil Nimesin, managed to send the Elf-Eater to Evermeet via an undersea tunnel. Ityak-Ortheel destroyed many elves before being dragged to Arvandor by Princess Ilyrana Moonflower.

Although Ityak-Ortheel had not appeared on Faerûn since, with the re-emergence of elves on the continent, some believed another rampage was imminent.

Around 1374 DR, a group of Malarites in the Forgotten Forest came across one of the Alamtine triangles that Malar had used to find the Fey-Alamtine. Despite not knowing its significance and the triangles having lost all of its power, they treated it as a holy relic. They offered blood sacrifices at least four times each moon-cycle in hopes of summoning Ityak-Ortheel to destroy Evereska.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Evermeet: Island of Elves • The Coral Kingdom