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Continuing from the previous post, this time we’ll be looking at Demogorgon’s Exarchs.

“Exarch” is the term D&D 4 uses for the “lieutenants” of a god or equivalent entity. They might preside over a narrower slice of their master’s portfolio, or simply help run their operations in the world and other planes. Though subordinate to someone else, exarchs are in no way weak: in the god-ranking system used in previous editions, all of them would have ranked as anything from demigods to intermediate deities themselves.

Orcus, which we looked at in the Monster Manual let’s Read, had one exarch: Dorensain, the King of Ghouls. Demogorgon has two, described below.

Kazuul

Kazuul used to be a human champion of Erathis a long time ago, and in her service he carved many a swath of order through savage lands. I guess that in the end something convinced him that this “carving a swath” business didn’t make him any different from the “savages” he claimed to oppose, and so he decided to embrace that and pledge himself to Demogorgon.

The demon lord gave him a gift of size and strength, making him double in size and become deformed by his over-developed demonic musculature. Kazuul now fights in the name of Hethradiah, the “brutal but cunning” head, driving a horde of demons before him to raid places in the Abyss and elsewhere in the multiverse. I guess Kazuul is a big inspiration to those shrieking cultists we saw in the last post.

Being a former human, Kazuul fights with weapons. Being a former adventurer, he’s always on the lookout for better weapons. If he notices one of his opponents is wielding something particularly sweet (say, a level 28+ magical weapon), he will engage that opponent and ignore everyone else until he’s taken the weapon for himself. Otherwise, he will just focus on killing whoever is closest and repeating that until there is no one else to kill.

This obsession with magic weapons stems in part from the fact that Kazuul used to own a legendary sword named Gorgorin the Shatterer. He lost it in a battle against Hainard, one of Pelor’s exarchs. He’s still sore about that, and looking for a way to either get his sword back or to find a suitably awesome replacement.

Kazuul’s current weapons are quite awesome already: there’s The Tooth of Grom, a sword forged from the tooth of a fire titan lord, and The World Splitter, an axe taken from Clangeddin Silverbeard, one of Moradin’s Exarchs.

There’s an ancient prophecy which proclaims that when Kazuul recovers Gorgorin, he will use it to slay Demogorgon and then displace Yeenoghu as the lord of gnolls. This prophecy has caused lots of infighting amongst demons, and there have been several failed attempts by all factions involved to find the blade’s current hiding place.

The Numbers

Kazuul is a Large Elemental Humanoid with the Demon tag, making him an official demon. He’s a Level 28 Elite Soldier with 528 HP. He has Darkvision and demonic Variable Resistance 10, switchable 3x/encounter. He has ground and fly speeds of 5.

He has two basic attacks with his sweet magic weapons: the Tooth of Grom (Reach 2 vs. AC) does physical damage and forces the target to make a melee basic attack against a target of Kazuul’s choice on a hit; the World Splitter (reach 2 vs. AC) also does physical damage and inflicts a -4 AC penalty (save ends). Wrath of Kazuul allows him to attack with both weapons in a single standard action. Oh, and Threatening Reach allows him to make opportunity attacks against any enemy he can reach.

If his enemies are beyond the reach of his blades, Kazuul can attack with Abyssal Flames (area burst 3 within 20 vs. Reflex) at will, doing fire damage on a hit. He also has a couple of handy spells for use when he gets closer:

Word of Doom (close burst 3 vs. Will; encounter) does heavy physical damage and allows Kazuul to crit against the targets on a natural roll of 15-20 (save ends). This is scarier than it might sound for someone used to 3.x! In Fourth Edition, criticals happen only on a natural 20. Only a handful of powers in the entire game increase that range. Word of Doom is the only one I can think of that widens it this much.

Vortex of Blades (close burst 3 vs. Reflex; enemies only; encounter) does double the damage of a basic attack and stuns (save ends). Simple, but still scary: stun (save ends) is a pretty serious condition.

Thrarak

Art by Chippy. Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast.

Thrarak’s origins are closely tied to the mythological origns for ettins that I wrote about during the first Monster Manual/Vault Let’s Read. It starts with Demogorgon fighting the god Amoth, who split his head in two. Before that wound had even healed, the earth primordial Storralk ambushed him and tried to take him down.

As the linked post says, Demogorgon defeated the would-be usurper handily, and bound his broken but still-living form under his throne. It was Dagon who gave him the idea for a bit of extra cruel punishment: using a ritual provided by Dagon, Demogorgon caused the first Ettins to be born from Storralk’s spilled blood, and to scatter through the world. Each one contains a small fraction of Storralk’s essence, so whenever an ettin feels pain, Storralk’s body feels it as well.

One of those first ettins chose to stay at Demogorgon’s side, and to seek his favor by alternatively healing and cutting Storralk’s flesh. This eventually got his attention and Demogorgon made her one of his exarchs: Thrarak, the Flayed Maiden.

Thrarak is specifically the Exarch of Ameul, the cunning head. She acts as Demogorgon’s emissary of vengeance, going after mortals and other entities that have angered the Prince of Demons or those who have the potential to become threats in the future. An expert torturer, she fights using twin lashes and yelling streams of maddening lore that’s dangerous to hear. She prefers to focus on one opponent at a time, which will either be the target of her master’s ire or the closest available enemy. Once she chooses a target she will ignore any other enemies to focus on it.

Legend has it that if Thrarak is slain and her heart burned upon Demogorgon’s throne, Storralk will finally break free of his prison. Freeing him could be an important step in defeating Demogorgon himself.

The Numbers

Thrarak is a Large Elemental Humanoid (giant) and a Level 26 Elite Brute with 596 HP. She has all the traits common to all Ettins: trained Perception, darkvision, ground speed 8, and the Dual Brain and Double Actions traits described in the original ettin post.

Her basic melee attack is the Lash of Ruin (Reach 3 vs. AC) which does physical damage, knocks prone, and dazes for a turn on a hit. She can sometimes increase her rythm and perform a Lashing Flurry maneuver (close burst 3 vs. AC; recharge 5-6), dealing physical damage and dazing (save ends) all she hits.

Once per encounter she can perform a Howl of Madness (Close Blast 5 vs. Will), which does psychic damage, slides the targets 3 squares, and forces them to make a melee basic attack against a target of Thrarak’s choice.

Those ettin traits I linked to are quite important to all of this: Thrarak has two full turns per round and some resistance to restrictive conditions. She can do a lot, which makes her dangerous to those enemies she’s focusing on. She should be put in charge of a monster team who can keep the remaining PCs off her back.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

We have one encounter for each Exarch:

  • Level 25: Thrarak, 1 abyssal rotfiend, and 2 nycademons.

  • Level 27: Kazuul, 1 marilith, and 1 balor.

It feels appropriate to add a whole bunch of minions to either encounter, if you think they’re not dangerous enough.

I think I like these two as villains more than I like Dorensain, Orcus’ exarch. Mechanically, Thrarak is just an epic ettin, but she has an interesting backstory tied to her people’s mythological origins. Kazuul’s magic weapon obsession is also interesting, and the Gorgorin lore has a lot of potential as an adventure hook.