Chaos War

The conflict between the obyriths and the demon lords (formerly primordials) is a foundational struggle that defined the creation and hierarchy of the Abyss. The obyriths are an ancient race of evil entities from a dying universe who initiated the birth of the Abyss by pushing a shard of uttermost evil into this reality to corrupt its most powerful beings.

The Original Usurpation

The primary conflict began when the first primordials, including Orcus, Demogorgon, and Baphomet, were drawn into the nascent Abyss by the whispers of the shard. At that time, a loathsome obyrith named Obox-ob had already claimed the shard, becoming the first Prince of Demons.

• The Triple Attack: Fearful that Obox-ob’s plans to plant the shard in the Astral Sea would grant him total control over the cosmos, Demogorgon, Orcus, and Baphomet—already in the throes of demonic transformation—attacked the obyrith prince.
• The Dethroning: They successfully flung Obox-ob and the shard back into the vortex of the Abyss, an act that sundered the plane and created the Blood Rift.
• Transformation: Following this battle, the three primordials were fully transformed into demon lords, but they retreated from the rift’s depths, fearing the waning of their power as they approached the shard.

The Queen of Chaos and the Age of Blood

The obyriths attempted to reclaim dominance through the Queen of Chaos, the most powerful of their kind.

• Slaying Obox-ob: During a rare millennial eclipse, the Queen of Chaos slew the weakened Obox-ob to seize his power, offering his reign to her lieutenant, Miska the Wolf-Spider.
• The Retreat into Hiding: After the Queen of Chaos was defeated in the Dawn War and dissipated back into the Abyss, the remaining obyriths were forced into hiding.
• Demogorgon’s Ascendance: Demogorgon took advantage of the power vacuum to assert his own claim as Prince of Demons, repelling outside assaults and crushing rivals, which forced the surviving obyriths to keep their true identities secret to avoid being targeted by the newer, more numerous demon lords.

Current Cold War and Secret Alliances

In the modern era of the Abyss, the conflict persists as a "sullen truce" and a game of shadows.

• The Quorum of Twelve: Twelve obyriths survived the ancient wars and formed a secret alliance known as the Queen’s Conclave or the Quorum of Twelve. Their goal is for one of their kind to eventually conquer the Abyss in its entirety, which they believe will restore the power they lost.
• Dagon’s Unique Status: Dagon, Prince of the Depths, is the only demon lord openly acknowledged as an obyrith, though his endgame remains mysterious. He currently serves as a powerful ally and advisor to Demogorgon, though some believe he is merely manipulating events from the shadows.
• Obox-ob’s Vendetta: Reborn by the will of the Abyss but stripped of his former title, Obox-ob now rules the layer of Zionyn as the Prince of Vermin. He harbors an intense hatred for the current masters of the Abyss and dreams of slaying Demogorgon to reclaim his status.
• Orcus’s Continued Rivalry: As one of the original lords who dethroned the first obyrith prince, Orcus remains in a constant state of war with his rivals, particularly Demogorgon and Graz'zt, while his servants hate and war against those of his competitors.

Ultimately, the obyriths view the newer demon lords like Orcus as interlopers who stole a realm the obyriths intended to reshape in their own image. The demon lords, in turn, view the ancient obyriths as lethal myths and structural threats to their hard-won dominion.

Wand of Orcus & The Early Modron March 

Orcus is the Demon Prince of the Undead and the sovereign ruler of Thanatos, the 333rd layer of the Abyss. Standing 15 feet tall, he is a massive, bloated figure with a ram's head, batlike wings, and legs ending in cloven hooves. He is best known for the Wand of Orcus, a black obsidian and iron rod topped with the skull of a hero that can cause immediate death to nearly any living creature it touches. Orcus is a figure of contradiction; although he commands legions of the deceased, he actually despises the undead and uses them merely as expendable tools in his eternal struggle for dominance against rivals Demogorgon and Graz'zt.

The History of Tenebrous

The entity known as Tenebrous was born when Orcus was murdered and deposed after becoming complacent in his abyssal wars. He rose from the dead as an "undead demon," hiding in the shadows to plot his reinstatement. During this period of exile, Tenebrous infiltrated the heart of Mechanus and used the "Last Word" to slay Primus, the One and the Prime.

By temporarily usurping Primus’s identity and connecting to the Infinity Web, Tenebrous gained access to a near-omnipresent view of the multiverse. He used this power to search for a lost artifact, his "precious tool of vengeance," which he eventually deduced was hidden somewhere within the Lower Planes. Tenebrous was eventually restored to life as the living Orcus through an obscene ritual on the Astral Plane performed by the cleric Quah-Nomag.

The Early Modron March

The Great Modron March is a massive procession of modrons that emerges from Mechanus every 289 years to collect multiversal data and realign planar workings. The most recent march, however, occurred years ahead of schedule and was fraught with irregularities.

• Tenebrous's Directive: This premature march was authorized by Tenebrous while he was masquerading as Primus; he sent the modrons out early specifically to help him locate his lost talisman.
• The Logos-Vector Units: In the context of your campaign history, this march served as a vector for Shemeshka the Marauder to hijack specific modron units. She targeted Logos-Vector Modrons—rare units like R04M (Delta-Nine) designed to monitor interplanar war-flows—and utilized them as a Living Ledger Cache for illegal war-contracts.