Daelkyr Lords: Princes of Madness

The daelkyr of Xoriat, the plane of madness, are incomprehensible beings. However, because of their invasion of Khorvaire during the Age of Monsters, great effort has been made to catalog and understand them. Records from orcish, goliath, and Dhakaani sources list many titles and names of daelkyr lords during the long conflict with them, but most scholars consider at least half of the names we have to be repeated names for the same lord. The following list is the most widely accepted list of daelkyr lords by scholars of the Age of Monsters.
At the end of the Daelkyr Wars, the lords of Xoriat typically met one of four fates. Some were killed during the conflict, brought down by powerful mortal heroes wielding astonishing magic. Others were imprisoned by Gatekeeper magic in sealed extradimensional prisons rooted in Eberron. Many of those who survived the conflicts were banished back to Xoriat, thrown through the planes to their home by the massive ritual which severed the ties between Eberron and Xoriat at the Battle of Two Seas. This battle, which occurred somewhere near the mouth of Scions Sound was so bloody that it was said the ocean's waves were met with a second ocean of blood from the land. During this battle, the Gatekeepers were able to cleanse the daelkyr from the surface of Eberron. Those who escaped the rolling waves of magical energy fled to Khyber where they continue to live in exile to this day.

The Six Plagues

Though a great many daelkyr lords are attested to in Dhakaani and Gatekeeper sources (even considering the overlaps mentioned above) only six are known to have survived the Battle of Two Seas and remain free and alive in the world. Belashyrra the Lord of Eyes, Herumar the Sand Scourge, Kyrzin the Prince of Slime, Murgremir the Rotting Hill, Ty-h'kadi the Prince of Thunder and Lightning, and Ul-athra the Mouths of Thirst all have realms deep in Khyber where they can steal into the dreams of mortals and make their own cults. The wards of the Gatekeepers keep these monsters from coming to the surface, though their twisted creations can often make the ascent. They have had millenia to consider these powerful magics, however, and many worry it is only a matter of time before they break them.

daelkyr-lords.png

Achazar

Title: The Pillar of Wrath
Fate: Banished (?) to Xoriat

Achazar is mentioned only briefly in the codices of the orcish cities but his appearances have struck considerable controversy among scholars. Appearing as a column of flame, Achazar is first mentioned during the First Daelkyr War, though there are depictions of a similar flame pillar on dolmen carvings dated to the Incursion War. As no other daelkyr lord (not even Dyrrn herself) are mentioned in both conflicts, this seems to be a coincidence. It is well-established, however, that Achazar scoured the shores of the Eldeen Bay during the First Daelkyr War and destroyed what orcish settlements he found there. The orcs were driven farther into the forests and mountains of the area but, abruptly, Achazar is not mentioned again throughout the Daelkyr Wars. There are unsubstantiated stories that he withdrew north to the "long northern tail" (presumed to be the peninsula on the northern shore of the bay) where he protected the daelkyrs' flanks from the demon masters of the Wastes.

Most troubling, however, are the reports of a column of fire west from the ruins of Desolate in the Demon Wastes which some fringe scholars worry may be some remains of the daelkyr lord. Any unbound portion of the daelkyr on the surface of Eberron could be disastrous and if the column is Achazar itself, even in hibernation, is alarming indeed.

Arambar

Title: The Steel Sky
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

The most powerful of the feared Princes of the Steel Sky (along with Tabrach-Ti and Castanamir), Arambar served as a powerful general under Miska called the Wolf-Spider. Resembling a massive storm front, Arambar scoured lands and sent nightmare storms to ravage field and mind alike. The Steel Sky was killed during the Second Daelkyr War, little remains of it today but a crashed asteroid made of black stone and covered with foul amniotic fluid buried somwhere in the Frostfell. It is barren and rocky ellipse of land covered in ridges, deep trenches, and sharp spikes upthrusting from the ground, though reportedly buried in snow after millenia. Noxious tar bubbles up from the craters that Gatekeeper legend says will drive any who touch it into a violent madness.

The atropals—twisted beings from the dealkyrs' husks of infinite worlds—are said to be the vestiges of nightmares dreamt by Arambar in death. Undead conjured from nightmares also may have some connection with the Steel Sky, though the suggestion that Arambar may undead and not destroyed is troubling.

Balcoth

Title: The Groaning King, The Headless Lord
Fate: Decapitated: his head was mprisoned by Gatekeepers, while his body rules in Khyber

During the Third Daelkyr War, a powerful lord named Balcoth one several important victories against the orcs and goliaths of western Khorvaire. He was especially feared for capturing victims alive and torturing them in horrifying ways and manners. Eventually, a Dhakaani hero challenged him on the battlefield and decapitated him with a legendary sword, dragging his head back to show as a trophy. When the head began to wake up, the Gatekeepers quickly sealed it in a prison, but it was not until the war was over that the Dhakaani and Gatekeeper forces realized that Balcoth's body was also alive. After the Battle of Two Seas, Balcoth's body escaped to Khyber where it rules with an iron mask in place of its head. Unlike other daelkyr lords, Balcoth's motivations are very comprehensible: to regain his head and break from his prison to terrorize the world again.

Information on Balcoth not specific to Eberron can be found in Balcoth, the Groaning King in Dungeon 178.

Belashyrra

Title: The Lord of Eyes
Fate: Ruling in Khyber

One of the six daelkyr the sages say have been left behind, some say that Belashyrra is the most foul of them all. Since fleeing into the Khyber, Belashyrra waits patiently, appearing only to those who worship the Cult of the Dragon Below. He has found a new home: the Citadel of Lidless Eyes, where he commands his followers, which include foulspawn, mind flayers, aboleths, and beholders. Since his entrapment in the Khyber, he has been content to simply be an artist; however, his goal is to use all of Eberron as his canvas.

Unlike most his foul brethren, Belashyrra wears a humanoid face. However, his disguise is not perfect: anyone looking at his face can tell it is entirely devoid of any emotions. In addition, anyone who looks into the eyes of Belashyrra is said to see their own eyes reflected back at them. Belashyrra is a master of symbionts and wields a symbiont breastplate that absorbs damage, a tentacle whip grafted to his left arm, and an artificial eye amulet that enhances his own powers.

As with all daelkyr, Belashyrra has the ability to warp reality. He can mold flesh into whatever form he wishes. While his fellow brethren had warped goblins to become the dolgrim, some say that Belashyrra's obsession with eyes that had him mold the first beholders of Eberron. From his Citadel of Lidless Eyes, it is said that Belashyrra can see through the eyes of any living being, by touching the living walls of his citadel.

Borem

Title: He of the Lake of Boiling Mud, Bwimborem
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

The daelkyr lord Borem is only known from the story of his death at the hands of the bugbear hero Bhaalmyrkul. Leading a force of daelkyr in the Third Daelkyr War, Borem met the hero in battle on the sands of the Blade Desert and was killed during the fight. According to legend, blood spilled from the daelkyr onto the red sands, staining them black and creating a boiling puddle of mud around his corpse. With his men still fighting, Bhaalmyrkul walked into the pool, wrenched Borem's heart from his chest, and devoured it. No one knows if Bhaalmyrkul knew of some dark ritual, if he took a chance based on some esoteric legend, or if he was giving in to simple bloodlust but the magical essence in the heart infused Bhaalmyrkul with both immense power and horrible madness. His actual reaction is somewhat obscured but soon Bhaalmyrkul found a manifest zone to escape to Dolurrh where he built himself a powerful stronghold. Many sages think that Bhaalmyrkul still lives, preserved by his terrible shadow magic, and is still quite powerful and quite insane.

Bryakus

Title: The Colossus of Chaos
Fate: Killed (?) in the Daelkyr Wars

The monstrous Bryakus made many twisted abominations and beasts which shattered the Dhakaani Empire. He was feared as much for his ravenous hoards of hydra children as for his own might, though that was certainly considerable. The central areas of Khorvaire were ravaged by his presence as he and his brood made the waters of Scions Sound and its branching rivers their hunting grounds. He was considerably wounded by the hero Murkoorak during the Second Daelkyr War though he recovered enough to return during the Third Daelkyr War to take up his former territories. He was torn to pieces during the Battle of Two Seas by Dhakaani battlemages, though some legends say that if his festering pieces could be reunited he would be reborn.

Castanimir

Title: The Shattered Khan
Fate: Banished to Xoriat

Dendar

Title: The Night Serpent
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Described in the lengthy Coiled Codex (unfortunatley better-known from the Kuraam the Savage novels by Elarr of Vedykar, almost universally reviled by archeologists), Dendar the Night Serpent was said to be a giant and tyrannical snake that fed upon the nightmares of mortals. Quoting from the Codex: "The Night Serpent's slit-pupil eyes are the sickly yellow-black of rotten eggs. Her forked tongue flickers incessantly over her smooth lips. Her monstrous fangs are always coated with the viscous essence of lost dreams. She speaks with a sibilant, malignant voice that drips with ancient horrors. Midnight-black scales cover her colossal hide and serve as the physical embodiment of the most terrifying nightmares she has swallowed."

This colorful depiction aside, Dendar the Night Serpent is most certainly the foremost foe of the mortal armies in the Third Daelkyr War. She is first mentioned shortly after the onset of the war and appears throughout plaguing the dreams of mortals. Dendar is usually depicted in illuminations and carvings with an uncountable horde of horrible dreams and foul visions in her gullet that she has been devouring since the dawn of time. She is said to relish the taste of particularly choice nightmares and seemed to take particular pleasure in tormenting heroes and leaders of the Dhakaani and Gatekeepers.

Despite her prominent position in the Xoriat forces during the Third Daelkyr War, the Night Serpent spent most of the conflict lairing somewhere near the Starpeaks in Aundair. Gatekeeper sages and warriors, following her hiss as she slept "contentedly gorged on the world's unremembered nightmares," were able to track and bind her there. The loss of the Night Serpent's powers was a heavy blow to the daelkyr and one of the victories that led to the Battle of Two Seas which ended the conflict. Orcish shamans carefully maintained the ward on Dendar's prison according to oral legends, though the actual location of the seal has been lost since the arrival of human kingdoms in the area, displacing many orcish tribes and much of the ancient religious practices.

Dur-baagal

Title:
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Dyrrn

Title: The Corruptor, Queen of Chaos
Fate: Banished to Xoriat

Erek-Hus

Title: King of Terror
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Garash

Title:
Fate: Unknown

Haemnathuun

Title: The Blood Lord
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Herumar

Title: The Sand Scourge
Fate: Ruling in Khyber

Heur-Ket

Title: The Storm Unabated
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Iktha-Lau

Title: The Ever Empty
Fate: Banished to Xoriat

Ilmeth

Title:
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Karshimis

Title: Despot of Shyr
Fate: Unknown

Kezef

Title: The Chaos Hound
Fate: Servant of Dendar in Khyber

Kyrzin

Title: The Prince of Slime
Fate: Ruling in Khyber

Lormoch

Title: Master of Tides
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Maegera

Title:
Fate: Banished to Xoriat

Mak Thuum Ngatha

Title:
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Maram

Title: She of the Great Spear
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Miska

Title: The Wolf-Spider
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

A mysterious daelkyr lord who appears infrequently in the Dhakaani records of the Daelkyr Wars, most of what is known about Miska the Wolf-Spider comes from the disjointed writings of Cheggar the Greenstar Seer. This orcish warlock who recorded a lifetime of insane visions in the Vermillion Journal, purporting to list the daelkyr and their interal affairs. According to the Journal, Miska resembled a cross between a massive spider and a titanic wolf, constantly shifting between these two forms with maddening anatomies in between. Cheggar also says that Dyrrn, the daelkyric Queen of Chaos, set out to repair the divisions among the Xoriat forces for her planned invasion of Eberron. By brute force and threats of death and punishment, she rallied her fellow daelkyr lords into a united front. To gain cooperation from a fringe element which stood against her, the Queen took as her lover and head general Miska the Wolf-Spider. The Queen went as far as to murder the previous head general to bestow the title on her new consort.

Whe Xoriat was again coterminous with Eberron, the forces of Xoriat under Miska's command were triumphant in battle after battle against the Dhakaani. The Dhakaani emperor, following a prophecy of the Gatekeepers, attempted to use the artifact known as the Kuul Kol'daan (the Rod of Rule) to stop the powerful Wolf-Spider. On a battlefield in the shadow of the Ashen Spires in modern Karrnath, the emperor's forces nearly succeeded in killing Miska before the daelkyr lords shattered the Rod into seven parts and scattering them to the winds. Miska was eventually imprisoned by the Gatekeepers at the end of the Second Daelkyr War, but the prophecy says that he will never be killed except by the Kuul Kol'daan.

It's unsure how much of this testimony is true as there is no way to verify it. Miska himself was not a prominent daelkyr lord during the wars with Dhakaan, especially when compared to such well-known terrors as Belashyrra, Orlassk, and Arambar, but goblinoid generals also felt sure that there was some powerful leader behind these daelkyr lords seperate from Dyrrn. It is entirely possible that records of Miska were lost or obscured and the description Cheggar provides has been suggested in some orcish archeological sites.

Mual-Tar

Title: The Thunder Serpent
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Murgremir

Title: The Rotting Hill
Fate: Ruling in Khyber

Nehushta

Title:
Fate: Unknown

Nekal

Title: She of the Glowing Deep
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Orlassk

Title: Master of Stone, Syvexrae (?)
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Piranoth

Title: The World Mover
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Rorn

Title: The Thing of Rages
Fate: Banished to Xoriat

Sehil

Title:
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Shangar

Title: The Uncrowned
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Shax

Title: The Destroyer
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Sisanthak

Title: The Endless Winter
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Solkara

Title: The Crushing Wave
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Tabrach-Ti

Title: Queen of Bronze
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Telos

Title:
Fate: Banished to Xoriat

Timesus

Title: The Black Star
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Ty-h'kadi

Title: Prince of Thunder and Lightning
Fate: Ruling in Khyber

Tziphal

Title: The Mountain Builder
Fate: Banished to Xoriat

Ul-Athra

Title: The Mouths of Thirst
Fate: Ruling in Khyber

Umboras

Title: Lord of Rimefire
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Uzrith

Title:
Fate: Unknown

Vezzuvu

Title: The Burning Mountain
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Vorchoon

Title:
Fate: Imprisoned by the Gatekeepers

Zurtharak

Title: The Vein of Iron
Fate: Killed in the Daelkyr Wars

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License