# Who's the Demon Lord of Disease?



## Dog Moon (Aug 1, 2008)

Or pestilence or something similar?  Trying to remember, but I'm unable to find it and I seem to have misplaced my Book of Vile Darkness so I can't look there...

Help would be much appreciated.


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## AtomicPope (Aug 1, 2008)

Beelzebub is the Lord of Flies, and the Hag Countess is covered in virulent pustules.  However, they're both devils.  I didn't see a Demon Prince of Diseases.  You could use the WH Prince of Pestilence Nurgal.


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## frankthedm (Aug 1, 2008)

The 1E D_ae_mon Anthraxus[sp] was linked to disease IIRC.


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## Roger (Aug 1, 2008)

Nurgle.


Cheers,
Roger


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## Shemeska (Aug 1, 2008)

I'm not aware of a demon lord associated specifically with disease, and none of the archdevils fit that bill fully either. However there were several yugoloths (daemons in 1e) that were overtly linked to disease - in fact the whole disease motif was associated with them as a type of fiend, as an extension of their and the Gray Waste's style of blind, uncaring agony and spiritual decay.

Unique 'loths with some sort of disease association, or potential one:

Mydianchlarus (current Oinoloth)
Anthraxus (former Oinoloth, and altraloth)
Typhus (altraloth)
Bubonix (altraloth, Overlord of Carceri)
Cholerix (altraloth)
Xenghara (altraloth)
Taba (altraloth)

Daru ib Shamiq (baernaloth)
Harishek ap Thulkesh (baernaloth)


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## Tonguez (Aug 1, 2008)

Azazel (Prince) - associated with Pestilence

Bayemon of the Unhealing Wound - Lord of 'the Afflicted'


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## Foxen (Aug 1, 2008)

I vote for Nurgle also!


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## Adrift (Aug 1, 2008)

Shemeska's response was what I was thinking. In 3e it was either Hades or Carceri but the head honcho Ultroloth (called the Oinoloth IIRC) could create new diseases almost at-will to further ravage the battle torn landscape and subsequently spread to the other planes.

Since the Ugoloths have been incorporated into the Demon fold in 4e, it could be simple to say that the Oinoloth Ultro-Demon is this Demon Prince of Undead.  I think that gives it a nice twist, but to each their own.  For some reason I've just always been a fan of Ugoloths.


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## Mathew_Freeman (Aug 1, 2008)

Foxen said:


> I vote for Nurgle also!




I think you could do a lot worse than bring in Nurgle - of course, using all four Chaos Gods from Warhammer could turn the campaign in an interesting way, too.


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## Schmoe (Aug 1, 2008)

Tallarn said:


> I think you could do a lot worse than bring in Nurgle - of course, using all four Chaos Gods from Warhammer could turn the campaign in an interesting way, too.




Blood for the Blood God!


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## Goobermunch (Aug 1, 2008)

Schmoe said:


> Blood for the Blood God!



Skulls for the skull throne!


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## Stoat (Aug 1, 2008)

Another vote for Father Nurgle. 

If you haven't heard of him, he's from Games Workshop's Warhammer games.  You can't use the stats, but the fluff is hard to beat.


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## Mathew_Freeman (Aug 1, 2008)

Schmoe said:


> Blood for the Blood God!




I seem to have awoken some dormant feelings with that one...

For reference, should anyone want to know, the four Chaos Gods are:

Nurgle (pestilence, decay, disease)
Tzeentch (change, magic)
Khorne (war, blood)
Slaanesh (sensation, pleasure, overindulgence).

I'm sure my ENWorld colleagues can supply more details if required.


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## EATherrian (Aug 1, 2008)

In traditional mythology I believe that Astaroth is the Lord of Disease, but I don't know if there ever was an Astaroth statted out.


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## Roland55 (Aug 1, 2008)

No Politics.

- Xath


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## Foxen (Aug 2, 2008)

Tallarn said:


> I think you could do a lot worse than bring in Nurgle - of course, using all four Chaos Gods from Warhammer could turn the campaign in an interesting way, too.




I was actually thinking of doing that with the campaign I'm running.  The kids in it all know who the Chaos Gods are....but little would they suspect me slowly slipping them into their D&D campaign...  Small clues here and there, etc.  I was planning some mass world shattering event in their campaign, and thanks to this thread...well, got me thinking.  Mwuahahahahaha!!!!

Fox


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## Rechan (Aug 2, 2008)

So, I'll bite: can anyone tell me what the Chaos Gods are all up on?

Gaming seems to associate "Chaos" with "Random, crazy action" or "Anti-Civilzation". But I've been told that the Chaos Gods aren't Chaotic like That.

So, can folks give a chime in?

Also, who's the demon prince of internet trolling?


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## Zanticor (Aug 2, 2008)

Just go with a guy first shooting arrows of pestilence at the army and call him the god of heelers. I find that mixing in some Greek gods is usually the best way of introducing chaotic gods into a campaign. They are just so much more unpredictable, ambiguous and complex then anything D&D has come up with that I have to say that the Greek pantheon are the real demon lords. My vote is on Apollo.

Zanticor


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## Mercule (Aug 2, 2008)

I thought disease was somewhere under Jubilex's portfolio.


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## wingsandsword (Aug 2, 2008)

Mercule said:


> I thought disease was somewhere under Jubilex's portfolio.




He's the Demon Lord of Ooze and Slime, but doing a little checking apparently diseases (especially pustules and similar seeping wounds) are one of his favorite manifestations and he uses diseases against his foes.  So, close but not Demon Prince of Disease per se.


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## James Jacobs (Aug 2, 2008)

I suspect that the shortage of disease-flavored demon lords is mostly due to the fact that the daemons picked up that schtick very early on, in the 1st edition MM2. There wasn't a lot of demon lord development happening at all during 2nd edition, and a lot of 3rd edition's demon lord development was focused on recapturing the feel of the 1st edition demon lords (and spending some necessary evil time rebuilding and refocusing on extant lords).

Anyway, were I to choose, I'd pick one of the following as the disease lord:

Bayemon: Demon lord of the afflicted.
Bechard: Demon lord of decomposition
Zivorgian: Demon lady of carrion and vultures

All of these are pretty good choices, since there's not been much done with them yet and their established interests are disease friendly.

HOWEVER: My best choice would be Yibyiru, the Rancid Lady of Bitter Bile. She's technically a demon lord associated with poison, but we've already got enough of those; were I still doing Demonomicon stuff, I'd probably recast her as the demon lord of disease, poison, and atrophy.


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## joethelawyer (Aug 2, 2008)

this girlfriend i had in high school...


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## Rechan (Aug 3, 2008)

Where is Bayemon detailed? I can't really find out what the hell "The Afflicted" is. It could very well just mean Fantasy Herpes.


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## Tonguez (Aug 3, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Where is Bayemon detailed? I can't really find out what the hell "The Afflicted" is. It could very well just mean Fantasy Herpes.




MM2 I beleive. Very little is known of Bayemon it is aaid that he escaped from the Wells of Darkness and now roams the Abyss. He has a gargoyle like upper body and a serpentine lowerhalf and is associated with possession.


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## Testament (Aug 3, 2008)

Rechan said:


> So, I'll bite: can anyone tell me what the Chaos Gods are all up on?
> 
> Gaming seems to associate "Chaos" with "Random, crazy action" or "Anti-Civilzation". But I've been told that the Chaos Gods aren't Chaotic like That.
> 
> ...




The Chaos Gods in the GW setting are more the inhuman, destructive incarnations of forces taken to their ultimate endpoint.  Their entire purpose is to tear apart creation and return it to a state of primordial flux.  There are theoretically infinite Chaos gods, ruled over by the four greater powers.

Khorne is the most straightforward of these, the God of war, blood, violence and conflict.  Of the greater four, he eschews magic completely, preferring just straightforward killing.  His most dedicated followers are utter madmen who will even _decapitate themselves _when mortally wounded to ensure that the Skull Throne gets even bigger.

Slaanesh is the youngest of the four, in the 40K setting it (completely androgynous) was inadvertently created by the Eldar (space elves) around the time of humanity's birth.  Slaanesh is the god of sensation, excess and all-round depravity.  Pleasure and pain are the same thing to Slaanesh, all that matters is ever intensifying sensation.  Seriously, if you can't make this horrific, YOU AREN'T TRYING.

Tzeentch is the ever-shifting, infintely mutable lord of magic and change.  While he rewards his followers with enormous magical power, he also is probably the most 'generous' when it comes to mutation.  Solidity and permanence are anathema, minds must be torn open and flesh shifted, no matter what.

Nurgle is the master of physical corruption and decay.  Grandfather Nurgle is the bringer of rot, plague, disease and putresence, and he is most generous with his gifts.  The desperate, the mad and the despairing invoke his name to stay his hand, and the smiling, laughing monstrosity responds by sharing his gifts.


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## Rechan (Aug 3, 2008)

Testament said:


> The Chaos Gods in the GW setting are more the inhuman, destructive incarnations of forces taken to their ultimate endpoint.  Their entire purpose is to tear apart creation and return it to a state of primordial flux.  There are theoretically infinite Chaos gods, ruled over by the four greater powers.



So it sounds like they are Chaoticl, from the sense of "Destroy order from its very basis, resulting in utter and complete anarchy from the ground up."

How do the "Chaos Marines" or "Chaos Wolves" or "Wolf Marines" fit into this? I apologize for nto knowing the accurate term. I was told these guys are a "different" kind of Chaotic than many foes in D&D.


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## Mathew_Freeman (Aug 4, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(Warhammer) is a good place to start.

To give some examples of the Power of Chaos (mwahahaha, etc) in a recent GW Book I've been reading Nurgle reached into a becalmed ship and reanimated the dead bodies of a group of Marines.

These reanimated Marines had their previous combat experience, but their equipment and armour were changed to reflect Nurgle's influence, including bolters that shot rounds of exploding body matter and chainswords with teeth of bone. The leader of the group was reborn with immense power, but retained his previous antipathy to the rest of the crew, taunting him with his new power and declaring that Chaos would conquer all.

The other Chaos Marines are from Legions (analagous to US military companies) that have turned to Chaos. So, for example, the Noise Marines use focussed noise as a weapon against their foes, employing sonic cannons where the Blood-drinkers simply wade into close combat with horrific strength and rage.


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## lin_fusan (Aug 4, 2008)

For Greyhawk, *Incabulos* is the god of Plagues, Sickness, Famine, Nightmares, Drought, and Disasters.

If I was into shameless self-promotion, I would suggest picking up Dungeon mag #105 for an adventure called 'The Stink' involving a cult of that god.


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## doctorhook (Aug 4, 2008)

I vote Anthraxus. In 4E, he's the perfect Demon Lord of Disease; 'Loths appear to be considered 'evil-aligned demons' anyway.


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## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2008)

Stoat said:


> Another vote for Father Nurgle.
> 
> If you haven't heard of him, he's from Games Workshop's Warhammer games.  You can't use the stats, but the fluff is hard to beat.



Actually, he comes from a bit farther back than that.  Nurgle is just a deliberate mispelling of the Babylonian god/devil Nergal, who's portfolio included plague and disease.

In an interesting bit of trivia, which I just discovered, some people believe Cthulhu might have actually originally been a name that Lovecraft dredged up for Nergal; the theory goes that Cthulhu was actually a deliberate mispelling/adoptation of the word Cuthalu, which means "man of Cuthah" which was the underworld city where Nergal resided as well as the name of the real world city where his cult was strongest, and was therefore a title of his.

The theory may not be correct, and actually I think "man of Cuthah" is supposed to be written Lucuthah, not Cuthalu, but it's very fascinating nonetheless.  Just because it's not technically correct that way doesn't mean Lovecraft might not have stumbled across the idea and mixed stuff up to make it less transparent.  I think the idea of a link between Nergal, demon-lord of disease and Cthulhu makes for great fun.


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## Stoat (Aug 5, 2008)

Hobo said:


> In an interesting bit of trivia, which I just discovered, some people believe Cthulhu might have actually originally been a name that Lovecraft dredged up for Nergal; the theory goes that Cthulhu was actually a deliberate mispelling/adoptation of the word Cuthalu, which means "man of Cuthah" which was the underworld city where Nergal resided as well as the name of the real world city where his cult was strongest, and was therefore a title of his.




Very cool.  What's your source for this?  I've been a Lovecraft fan for a long time, and I'm always interested in reading something new about him.


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## Desdichado (Aug 5, 2008)

Stoat said:


> Very cool.  What's your source for this?  I've been a Lovecraft fan for a long time, and I'm always interested in reading something new about him.



Apparently this is from one of the "fake Necronomicons"; the Simon Necronomicon, which attempts to link Sumerian and other Mesopotamian mythology to the Cthulhu mythos, as would be likely for a "mad Arab."

So, that kills any idea that there's a serious link here, but it's still a very clever idea nonetheless.


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