What They Don't Tell You About Orcus, Demon Lord of Undeath - D&D

sometime in the not so distant past something occurred in the astral plane an event that had repercussions throughout the multiverse a dead god began to stir course fallen deities returned to life every now and then but this time was different the power continued to rise his appearance slowly changing his form slowly warping then the god simply vanished from the silvery void only the guardian of the dead gods he who once was anubis noticed the disappearance and he shuddered at the implications one of his charges was returning to life and his name was orcus what was different from orcis's resurrection from death from other deities is that when typically gods return from the dead they come back alive but that wasn't quite the case for orcus who was the lord of the dead how proper isn't it for a symbol of death to instead return in on death no other proper god would dare be deleted from existence and die only to return in this fashion but is orcus still a god or is he something else what is his story and who indeed killed him well before we get into it check out this amazing description quote the towering bulbous form is a bulwark of crimson flesh horns as black as onyx crest his slopping forehead curving forward to evoke the unnerving image of a sneering skeletal ram pinpoint of hellfire white hot peer from the hollows of the fiend's eyes as it exhales smoke and steam the stench of rot and refuse almost overwhelming a pair of draconic wings unfurled from the malevolent prince's back the tattered membranes pallid and translucent chains draped with humanoid skulls clatter against the demon's black plate armor as it steps forward on stout legs that end in hooves it haves a wicked looking maze and loses another worldly roar this incredible description for an orcas meetup comes from describe.com our sponsor for today's video it describes an incredible source for high quality professionally made box descriptions for monsters spells many different characters and locations they really do have thousands and thousands of descriptions and all you have to do is search for what you're looking for and you're guaranteed to find it plus many other adjacent descriptions that relate to your search look if you search cure wounds you not only get a normal version of cure wounds but also professionally made descriptions for accurate wounds that comes from a more dark spell you get masculine and you also get a healing spell made by cauterizing flames if you were to scroll down you would get so many more by the way there's a ton and you can find these for almost any single spell in the game i mean look at these descriptions they are really really good further in their quest to have amazing descriptions for anything imaginable dnd related they have started to partner up with some of your favorite d d battle map creators like zepekku who i am 100 sure that you have seen their work they have some of the best battle maps out there so now cepekko is doing maps and describe 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and slain the new ruler claimed this which was to be heard by all who belong to the lair i know that some of you have ever wondered you know what happens when a demon lord gets deposed and slain well listen to this quote know that now and forevermore he who once claimed thanatos is no more the past master of this place is gone and shall not return i currently mother of vengeance and mistress of unlife rule here now and shawl into infinity my will is law in tenethos for it is now my realm let no soul mortal or otherwise speak of the former ruler again let no written word anywhere in all existence past or present record his misbegotten appellation let this be the last moment any creatures ever hear the name fall upon their ears the last voice to speak the name shall be that of his executioner and i say it now for the final time orcas and quote see kieran sally used to be a drow demigod just one of the many powers under the boot of lolf trying to break free from lolf she attempted something incredible orcas had done some slight to kieran sally in the past that her being a demigod of vengeance could not let go orcas himself after eons of stalemates fighting both demogorgon and gracid had grown complacent had grown fat see orkus hates life but what he truly hates is the vibrancy of life the activity of the living all that noise all that movement everyone chirping and talking and walking and creating and laughing why can't people just simply stop why can't we all just rest in peace can we all just shut up a still world with nothing that moves or barks that's the world that orcas wants to live in and for a while he had it on his realm at least the worst against the other demon lords yielded no results and he had all the souls that he could ever want and so he spent his days gorging himself on larva until he literally grew a beast he just let his guard down and currently ambushed and slayed him quote the goddess then used strong magic to wipe away every mention of her foe's name wherever and however it had been recorded she lacked the power to erase the very memory of orcas from the minds of the multiverse which is what she really wanted to do but her enchantments still swept through the plains removing the name orcas from all histories etchings and the like thus did she reshape thanatos into her own image though the undead residents remained virtually unchanged lastly currently dealt with the wand of orcas the former ruler's most cherished and mighty artifact end quote it was of course her inability to erase memories that facilitated the result of orcas later on but she did indeed kill orcas and then of course send his corpse a drift amongst the astral plane even if only for a time thing is orcas was indeed a god but to what extent is actually very unclear out of all of the demon lords orcas has the biggest following on the prime and always did many do believe that it is because orcas stands for something very specific and very easy to understand a primeval desire for all mortals is something that everybody wants immortality the lore is very vague nowadays about what exactly is his power or where he stands amongst divinity but it has been described that orcs technically does not have the ability to grant spells per se as much as he has the incredible ability to funnel the negative energy plane and then send it towards his followers of course granting them abilities that may be quite like magic but the reality is simply that many people revere him as a god they pray to him and perform grand sacrifices in his name and out of all of the demon lords he simply has the biggest following and if there is a demon lord that that is the closest to true divinity it would be indeed him and so in spite of all records of his name being deleted from existence this did not stop those who would want their lord resurrected to act in his honor it is also kept very vague exactly what happened that caused the body of orcas to shift into one death it's interesting that the lore even describes as sarak the bad guy from tomb of annihilation and tomb of horrors to have something to do with it but something did happen and orcas woke up see for as long as a god has followers people that pray to them and believe in them you can't really truly kill a god and frankly orcas still had followers those followers prayed to him and he woke up thing is the wind of orcas a very well-known powerful artifact is a big part of orcus himself there is a grand portion of his essence and soul that resides within that wand and without it orcus could not truly be back to how he used to be currently had hidden it somewhere deep in pandemonium and those she had trusted with hiding it were slain by drowning in the river sticks a very clever solution by the way since even if they were to be resurrected they would have amnesia since of course those who fall into the river sticks have their memories erased by the river and so this new undead orcas now more a vestige or a shadow of his former being needed to find his wand and for this he needed to travel through the plains incognito and so he chose a different name to go by at least for the moment quote to celebrate and signify his new state of existence orcus chose a new name now a thin small shadowy creature he called himself tinibrus for he was shut off from the light of life forevermore it was more he'd lost too much strength to hold on to his former level of divinity a lesser than even a demigod now a thunderbirds could no longer form avatars but make no mistake he was still a god far beyond the strength of the mightiest mortal and still in command of potent and terrible might and more than ever before he hungered to exact revenge on those who had wronged him and in his new twisted state it twisted both physically and mentally that meant everyone in the multiverse bathed in unholy energies tenebres left the astral by way of yggdrasil the world ash whose branches wind their way through the cosmos to reach many some say all planes he knew he'd need help to regain his former power but in trying to summon his old servants tinibras discovered that they too had been slain by kirin salee so he brought them back to unlife these undeatonary he called visages and he set them upon the task of secretly gathering information to aid in his vengeance igtracil allowed them to walk the planes as needed and the quiet town of crocs nestled in the branches of the world ash served as a secret base no one knows exactly how much time passed at this point in the tale suffice it to say that some years later tenebres discovered the means by which to achieve his evil goal in the ruins of pelian on the plane of arboria the undead lord found the last word it was the ultimate magic of on making a force potent enough to slay even a god just a thing tenebrous sought but tinderbros lacked one important item the tallest man that made him what he was he needed his symbol a the tool that contained a portion of his very essence the thing that made it clear to his enemies that he had returned the thing that let him strike fear into the hearts of his foes so that they'd know in their last seconds of life exactly who had defeated them the being that had been orcas needed his wand and quote the story is actually really interesting tenebres went over to the plane of mechanus and killed the modern primus using this ancient magic called last word it is not described exactly how the magic works but it seems to function as a divine version of power word kale that basically works on even deities it's probably some relic of the dawn war from eons ago but in any case he killed primus the god of moderns and the god ruler of mechanism then forced what is called a modern march see mojo runs every 289 years make what is called the great modern march or also known as the modern parade where thousands and thousands of moderns basically just explore the outer planes nobody actually knows what is the purpose of the march but many assume that it is for information gathering where you effectively just send machines all over the multiverse in order to catalog and record everything and then all that information gets sent back to primus who indeed saves it well in this case basically tenebres took over the role of primus like actually became primus for a while and then forced an early march he instructed all of the moderns to basically just look for his wand in the end they didn't find the one but then found who had hidden it a short story short tenebrous ended up using his last word to kill a mind player deity to look for information he figured out that there was a blossom in bator in the nine hells which could cure the sticks of nisha and then used it on the undead drow who had hidden the wand and then found the wand and defeated karen selene of course and took over his realm once again and reclaimed his name of orcas it is then said that a large coalition of gods got together to banish and seal the magic of the last word and presumably destroy it for all time oh and the next mode drone in line became the new primus it's a really interesting and cool story by the way now since then orc has decided to never let his guard down again now it is not explicitly said but there has been of course a large change to orcis's body where he now looks more undead than he did before apparently he probably is something more akin to a demigod with some divine inclinations though the rules that he plays by do appear to be a bit different from others and not truly a full divine creature but something adjacent something very very close so let's describe him this massive demon stands 15 feet tall with his frame being a combination of both living muscle bloated flesh rot and skeleton his head is that of a ram with a great moth filled with tusks and his thick third legs and including hoofs his legs are goat-like while his chest and hands are human-like his wings are bat-like and leathery he carries with him always of course the wand of orcas made from bones as horror as iron and is topped with a magically enlarged skull that once belonged to a human hero slain by orcas plants wither drinks spoil flesh rots and vermin thrive in the wand's presence now even though it can't be seen on moe's arc orcus actually does possess a tail which can inject a debilitating toxin that can weaken most foes to the point of paralysis in a mere minute now orcas himself is a demon lord of on death and so all his powers revolve around creating undead creatures and controlling them in fact lichtsteiner is one of his favorite things to grant his followers it was in fact orcas who indeed granted wegner the ritual to originally become a lich turning them upon death into the greatest of all liches and so the armies of orcas in the abyss are predominantly undead in what is believed to be a literal never-ending force demons hate fighting him because there is never an actual end to the forces that he can control and furthermore any enemy slain by orcas's forces then will of course become raised as dead to join the infinite army now not much is known about the origins of orcas though demons believe that he was once a mortal who lived a life of wickedness and so as a chaotic evil mortal he was sent upon death into the abyss where he became a larva than a mane he evolved into a rudder kin then into a knowledge knee it is said that by the time the git yankee were rebelling against the mind flayers on the astral plane orcas was a nailfishney that sat on the 400th layers court of woe eventually of course he turned into a bailor and then conquered the layer 113th to become what he is today nowadays most of his time is spent in the same war that you all know very well this never-ending conflict between demogorgon gracit and orcas it is very explicitly described actually that demogorgon is much more powerful than orcas and that that's why orchestra big doesn't fight him or his armies directly instead he sends vampires and such to subtly undermine the prince of demons in whatever ways he can whereas with gracit he sends everything he's got typically the battle as it unfolds today is effectively demogorgon and orcas versus gracit with the occasional confrontation between orcas and demogorgon now the cultists of orcas are very interesting since that's what makes orca so formidable he's not really strong because of his physical might or his incredible intellect but instead the grand power of his cultists who is much greater than any other demon lord since this grants him at least some measure of divine power orcas demands living sacrifice as part of his rituals blood and skulls are an important part of the imagery used in his worship idols and altars are often surrounded by or built upon tall piles of skulls intelligent undead never willingly serve orcas they are more likely to venerate the deities wegner or erythnol however many vampires liches and other undead creatures are forced into his service by dark packs or compelling magic priests and particularly influential followers of orcas are called skulls while high priests are called skull lords often a single scold lord gains so much power and influence among the followers of workers that he adopts the mantle of skull king or skull queen it is common for followers of workers to carry black skull topped scepters around not in order to fool anyone into thinking that they wield the actual wand of orcas but to represent and remind others of their lord's dread might they also often wear skull masks and black robes with hoods or goat horned headdresses and silver robes and quote coltes of orcas are notorious necrophiliacs one of the foulest fetishes among evil humanoids which of course is the enjoyment of sex with the dead necrophiliacs may have sex with corpses as part of a religious right or as a sign of fealty to a higher power or simply for their own pleasure end quote it is said that particularly vile individuals use the bodies of those defeated and slain enemies to give themselves a feeling of power and superiority now those who please orcas are granted abilities that are something akin to magic and spells but it's more of a dark blessing that turns you into what is called a thrall of orcus these thralls are always either powerful necromancers or notorious necrophiliacs that consort with undead creatures and demons and form small cells of depraved evil hidden in cities and quiet villages as a right to turn into one of these trolls you must sacrifice an intelligent being in a horrific ritual which takes place in complete darkness atop an altar made of at least 30 skulls now those who are blessed by orcas become putrid almost as they are undead themselves while still alive they obtain the ability to grow demonic wings and procedurally become more and more like their dreadlord and some of them grow obese like orcas or become gaunt and skilled alike further they gain incredible power to summon the dead from vampires to ghosts and zombies including the pinnacle of all blessings which grants the thrall the ability to summon a nightwing an enormous bat-like demon that performs as a flying mount now if you want to ascend higher within the ranks of orcish cultist you have to accept a summon by orcas into his demonic lair where you will be asked your test in order to become a skull lord if you failed you become a lich under the control of orcas but if you succeed you retain your mortality and get a great power to control the undead then as a skull lord you would use this power to tame an army of savage undead that you would find on the demonic lair and then bring that army over into the prime in order to conquer land in the name of orcas then if you are really good at that of course you would then become a skull king now as we mentioned before orcas's realm is called thanatos it is described as a place filled with ash grey clouds and cold black skies it has the nickname the belly of death a place where daylight never shines quote the layers in men's melancholic moon changes faces at random when covered by clouds making time difficult to measure a handful of cities crouch upon the lair's vast tundras heavens for the mortal and immortal cultists who seek to emulate the life of their demonic patron outside the cities roving hordes of thousands of undead roam across the land in search of flesh the strongest and most ambitious of orchestrals attempt to dominate and command these armies leading them on invasions of the material plane and the layers of rival demon princess like gracit and demon gorgon end quote now the layer itself is not just filled physically by undead but it's almost sort of empowered by the very essence of on death and so it is quite deadly for living creatures unless they have received the blessing of orcas living creatures in this realm take damage every single second that they exist within the realm unless they are warded against death and typically just having an enchantment like death ward is enough to prevent this damage effectively for as long as the ward holds however you must also consider that the lair is not meant to be breathed since of course it is a realm of undead as such the air is extremely thin in here and those who need it must succeed on a constitutional saving throw or quickly become fatigued and exhausted typically failing two of these checks will result in the adventurer beginning to suffocate on the same vein because of the lack of oxygen very little plant life exists here as you will typically find only mosses molds and fungi now if you die anywhere on the realm you will automatically be raised up as an undead though this can of course be reversed by the resurrection spell undead on the lair also heal over time as they are being bombarded constantly with power from the negative energy plane which orcas is quite adept at utilizing now this here is a map of thanatos as you can tell orcas is blessed with the river sticks passing through his realm which is always of course a big boon the river stix tends to be great for places where it passes through because many people actually use it to travel all across the plains so it just means that many people do pass through this particular realm which is a good thing now the river ends by the frozen sea which stretches as far as the eye can see into an icy wasteland the ice here extends for miles below the surface as well now if you were to follow the icy wasteland to its end it would eventually reach the abyssal sea which is an enormous vast ocean that connects many of the different layers of the abyss now we're gonna go one on one through each of these locations so that you guys know what they're all about narrative here used to be the capital of thanatos when kieran silly dominated the realm now it is simply a desolate sprawling den of treachery and murder as the remnants of the aristocracy from her times struggle to survive and make a name for themselves now that orcas rules the land oh keep in mind by the way that the revival of workers happened very recently as far as the cannon is concerned it really could have been just like 200 years ago tops lash embraer is technically the center of thanatos since it is here where orcas originally took over the lair and used his demonic power to take ownership of the land technically the layer just sort of extends from this centerpiece and nowadays this is where most of the cultists of orcas congregate whenever they make pilgrimages into the lair and the city has an enormous aurora borealis type of effect of different colors that permeates the sky that's why you see this little icon in here vagrant is a ruined city that is abandoned it used to be the stronghold of a powerful baylor that betrayed orcis and got owned basically nowadays you would only find in here a faction of planner scholars and philosophers that study death they are called the dust men but we'll probably cover them when we touch sigil the city of doors later on the city of strait curves is another ruined frozen over ghost town where only a few people live it is mostly the lair of a powerful servant of orcas named gluzidval who has the entire city enchanted so that those that enter can basically never find their way out he makes it so that the streets that appear straight in fact loop back upon themselves and bend in magical and extra dimensional ways hence at the name of the city the place is meant to look like a safe haven from the outside but then obviously meant to trick people into getting stuck orcas gate is where the demons loyal to orcas live the name comes from the fact that there is a permanent portal that links this layer with the first layer of the abyss so that the demons of orcas can go and fight in the blood war in the front lines and then come back home la rimosa is the actual practical capital of thanatos where most of the people live it is also the most hospitable place in all of this lair the place is nicknamed the cauldron of tears because of rust red geysers that spurt steam and water across the port now even though naretier was the living capital under currency's rule la crimosa was her seat of power and you could still see her actual fortress which is called the forbidden citadel still standing many people actually wonder why orcis hasn't destroyed it but most believe that it is because it was created using powerful divine energy and since orcas is not technically a full deity yet it can't quite destroy it interestingly though there is a hidden device under the citadel protected by divine locks that opens to a vortex to the heart of the positive plane the lore describes it that if it were to be ever opened then it would have devastating repercussions not just for thanatos but perhaps for the whole of the abyss goldman thorus were the cultists of workers who fail orcas go to where they are transformed into liches so thousands of liches live here all of which are controlled by orcas they often try and venture outside of the plane of hunger to capture and control hordes of free undead that roam in the fields in hopes of obtaining armies and then impressing their master now the final hills separate what is effectively the realm of thanatos and the personal and private realm of orcas it is also worth mentioning by the way that over here in the valley of the crypt things you can find maze-like passages of undead-filled corridors that eventually connect to the endless maze the abyssal layer of bafflement at the far end we have oblivions and the periphery of civilized thanatos here is a sprawling desert of bona meal with howling wind storms the screams of lost incorporeal undead and the massive fortress of everlost the tower is made from countless bones specifically retrieved from all of the grand conquest of orchestra's armies throughout the abyssal material plane now this here is the seat of power of orcus and is of course where you can personally find him and from here he issues decrees to his cult pronounces death sentences to those that offend him and effectively rules the lair overall orcas is not really a hands-on demon prince preferring the solitude of his existence he would much rather just let his underlings deal with all of the details of ruling his vast kingdom and all of the movements from his armies in the prime he simply lays out the grand plans and basically like the end goals and then trust his confidence demon sergeants and powerful lich servants to carry out the deeds now moving a bit into the power of the demon lord himself we of course have stat sheets and abilities like we do for many of the demon lords including some which do appear in fifth edition however as i mentioned before orcas is not really a hands-on demon lord he's not really the type to mess with you directly by appearing right in front of you and attacking you further he's actually not that powerful physically at least not compared to someone the likes of demon gorgon who is just brimming with power abilities and exquisite magic and skill instead what orcas possesses is an indescribable ability to control the undead and generally speaking even the most powerful of necromancer have limits to how many undead they can control or a limit to what kind of undead they can create orkus just simply has no limits fighting orcas is tricky simply because he can just move his wand around and then summon a bunch of true vampires to fight for him he really can just do that his abilities to raise undead have no limits and as long as he has these spell slots he can just keep on using such spells without having to worry about silly things like concentration now you of course can understand how tricky it must be to fight one who can simply control liches i mean the liches are of course some of the most powerful monsters in dungeons and dragons and this is why we won't really delve deep into his physical attributes and abilities because that's not really what makes him strong it is however very interesting that in spite of him being so close to the undead he actually has no love for them quote orcas is in many ways a contradictory figure he does not delight in his charges the undead and has not taken up the self-proclaimed mantle of prince of the undead out of devotion or allegiance if anything the demon lord despises the undead he has little but contempt for them and uses them without thought or consideration of course orcas despises the living as well he hates everything and everyone often being almost overwhelmed with revulsion and loathing he craves only personal power and the spread of misery and destruction for all others end quote now the last thing that we're going to talk about is of course one of the most fascinating artifacts within dungeons and dragons history even though there is not much to it that we know and lore and nonetheless is a name that many of us recognize the wand of orcas as we described it before it has a potent amount of orchesis essence instilled into it making the two of them virtually linked further the wand shares many of the abilities of his dreadful master being a powerful magic item in its own right that can control and summon undead as well as cast a veritable cascade of death related spells quote occasionally orcus allows his wand to be found by a mortal in order to wreak greater chaos and evil amongst those inhabiting the material plane this sort of aliens lasts only for a short time perhaps a year or two at most before the bloated prince grows bored and reclaims his artifact usually along with the soul of whoever currently wields it end quote this is why of course you find many stories of adventurers finding the fabled wand of orcas just simply hidden in dungeons or under the care of powerful masters if you ever fought orcas you would actually notice though that he relies heavily on that wand interestingly much more preferring to fight in melee than far away using spells his powerful natural attacks completely become second thoughts though not using his tails or claws or ramming attacks at all instead focusing entirely on using the wand physically to deal damage it is of course provided that he's fighting only a few foes if he's fighting dozens of warriors and of course he would choose to be careful and then summon undead and tanari to aid him as he backs off and fights from a distance see but the reason that he prefers to use his wand physically in combat most of the time it's not just because of how unbelievably powerful it is which it is but the biggest reason is that every single strike from the wand afflicts the enemy with a full cast of death magic basically every single strike he lands on you you would be forced to make a constitutional saving through or just simply die see all other demon lords have fancy abilities tricky spells powerful secret trump cards orcas is symbol just a simple demon lord straight to the point if you get hit you die hey guys thank you so much for watching make sure to go over to mrx.com to check out our incredible new orkus merch and this is some of the sickest art that i have seen for a demon lord so you cannot miss out on this i mean look at this jesus is awesome i think i might just put this on some stickers man i i need to plaster this on everything but please go and check out the merch i would greatly appreciate it i would like to personally thank my patreon supporters barry maskin 5v magic shop morgan johnson rusty rayne doc feeder the great codini omega scales alex cookson benjamin buster's faulky 951 or doric sabine kurshab solorensis thomas hunt nathan mccomb soulless rider lost crusader mr salty stalia jd green olaf clap trev 909 brian kemp chad aiga john the wicket stephen tony rc famine 52 george fortland sovereign mind trevor hess drag lugia 5 the living guild pack michael walker street blow describe herbert johnson the 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Channel: MrRhexx

Views: 220,295

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Id: OU5TxNh-mR0

Length: 32min 32sec (1952 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 17 2021