Ygorl

Ygorl was the slaad lord of entropy, the second-oldest slaad lord after Ssendam, and was considered the "de facto" ruler of Limbo. The best known and most dreaded of the slaad lords, it was said he created the Spawning Stone that was the focus of the slaad race, forcing them to take frog-like forms rather than their original, purely chaotic shapes.
==Description==
Ygorl normally appeared as a tall slaad skeleton with flightless bat wings and charred-black bones.
Mysteriously, Ygorl seemingly lacked the same shapechanging powers of other slaadi; the form he took outside of Limbo was that of a male human warrior with dark skin and adamantine armor, and he could take this form whenever he wished. However, he had practically never been seen on his home plane, within which his form was said to be that of a completely black, tall slaadi, and he couldn't take this form at will. Regardless, the Lord of Entropy was always in shadow.
==Personality==
Ygorl's inescapable fate as a manifestation of entropy was seeing the world as it would become when eroded by eternity—broken and decayed— and all who gazed into the slaad lord's cold, apathetic eyes could behold their own deaths reflected back at them. He had no sense of compassion or empathy, nor did he feel affection or concern for the slaadi he used as living tools to bring entropy to the multiverse, merely believing his brand of chaos was best delivered by the truest agents of chaos. Ygorl's only drive was the delightful act of unmaking, bringing chaos to any system he entered, and it was death, decay, and disorganization that he most desired to force the multiverse to accept.
The root of Ygorl's entropic motivation was unclear. Some said he desired to unmake so that the base elements could fuel the multiverse's endless cycles of creation and destruction. Others purported he was simply dedicated to universal destruction, his goal being to unravel the fabric of reality and scatter its remains to the void of nothingness. Trying to decipher his motives directly would be an arduous ordeal, for the slaad lord channeled his thoughts to others in a telepathic stream both difficult to follow and disturbing to endure, and mortals that attempted to communicate with him were known to go mad from trying.
That said, it was debatable whether or not the Lord of Entropy could be considered evil. He was not the most cruel or malicious of the slaad lords, being more indifferent to suffering than fueled by sadism. He was highly intelligent, particularly regarding matters of the arcane, and the steps he had taken to certify his success were far-reaching. The secretive slaad lord wasn't in a rush to complete his goal either, partially because he knew of the pushback he would receive, and he perhaps acted only to ensure the ending he had foreseen.
==Powers==
Ygorl was the second most powerful slaad lord next to Ssendam, and a being infused with great entropic power. Living creatures rotted and withered when within Ygorl's presence, his magical, entropic emanations leaving those around him more vulnerable while also enhancing their ability to do harm.
That was when the Bringer of Endings wasn't actively using his ability to unmake life; his touch sapped strength and vigor, and he could absorb the energy of others around him to empower himself. The slaad lord could also create zones of entropy, making it difficult for the bruised and bloodied to escape. He himself was immune to harmful necromantic magic. as well as enchantments, poisons and diseases.
Ygorl had many spell-like abilities at his disposal. At will, he could cast spells such as advanced illusion, blink, darkness, detect invisibility, detect magic, fear, flame strike, know alignment, and sleep. Other spells at his disposal had more limited uses, including circle of death, death fog, energy drain, enervation, finger of death, harm, mental prison, phantasmal killer, power word pain, power word kill, power word stun, symbol of death, symbol of discord, symbol of hopelessness, and weird.
Ygorl could also summon death slaadi or gray slaadi.
==Possessions==
Ygorl's most notable possession was a heavily enchanted, adamantine scythe long from tip to handle. The blade and/or handle of the sickle was inscribed with glowing runes spelling out the ancient slaad word for "death", and rightly so. The sickle could cut through any living flesh, and, if unable to resist its effects, had a half and half chance on instantly killing or turning to ash any living being it struck, with only wish magic able to bring the subject back.
Even if it didn't kill the living, the scythe could leave its victims temporarily immobilized and when swept, could create arcs of necrotic energy. If Ygorl willed it, it could also disintegrate inanimate objects just by touching them, and only Ygorl himself, Ssendam, and beings of similar status could resist it's power.
Ygorl also had a set of obsidian tablets he kept around his waist, upon which were inscribed destructive runes.
==Realm==
Even in the otherworldly environments in floated in, Ygorl's solitary lair was notably unusual. The fortress constantly changed appearance at the will and whim of its master; it could appear as a a shattered, desecrated marbled temple, a rough hewn cavern, or as a series of interlaced carved spheres (with Ygorl dwelling in the innermost sphere) from moment to moment. Ygorl's control over it was absolute, and those trying to flee from within it would find that all its corridors led only to where Ygorl wanted them to. The structure whirled throughout all of Limbo, drifting haphazardly in its chaotic currents, and vanished before reappearing at random within the Elemental Chaos.
==Activities==
Ygorl was Limbo's reclusive "ruler", insofar as a plane of ultimate disorder could be "controlled" and the inhabitants of utter chaos could be "mastered". If not withdrawn into his keep to reflect and plan his next move, he was roaming; wherever his shadowy figure was cast, death inevitably followed, as plants withered, animals grew sick, and the color of the environment itself was leeched away. Of the slaad lords, he was the only one to ignore the Pandemonium Stone whenever it stayed in one place long enough for other beings to gather around it.
Ygorl's actions seemed odd due to the understated nature of his schemes. His plans depended on the slaad race, and he oversaw their ever-growing numbers to ensure chaos's spread. He directed the death slaadi to organize the mass spawning of red and blue slaadi, unleashing hordes of them on the Prime Material Plane and Blood War battlefields to perpetuate the race. The slaad spilled out in hundreds or thousands on Ygorl's seemingly purposeless missions, wiping out settlements, destroying regions, or retrieving lost magic items. Whatever his goal, he weakened the very structure of reality.
Part of Ygorl's sinister master plan was to subtly sever the ties between mortals and gods. Of all the slaad lords, he desired most to discourage the commonly held notion that his kind were deities, and commanded all slaadi to consume anyone inquiring about slaad gods. It was his belief that were the slaad lords to lose the element of mystery, they would be treated by those across the multiverse, whether on the Material Plane or otherwise, as something benign, and a ceaseless host of glory-seeking adventurers would start going after them. Reality was filled with those that had something to prove, and Ygorl couldn't be bothered to try and fend them all off. For similar reasons, he consumed any death slaad that seemed close to becoming a slaad lord to keep their numbers low, all to perpetuate their anonymous status.
==Relationships==
===Common Slaad===
Ygorl considered the slaadi no more than his living pawns, only furthering the race in pursuit of his inscrutable goals. The slaadi themselves obediently obeyed his orders, even the seemingly meaningless, since they would rather do so than be devoured for ignoring him. The closest he Ygorl typically had to "followers" were the lesser slaadi that followed close behind him, delighting in the havoc he wreaked and exacerbating the mayhem.
The most powerful of the nonunique slaadi, the black slaadi, embodied entropic energy similar to those Ygorl himself wielded. By his touch, those he selected as personal troops would become blaack slaad entropics, his close, virtually immortal followers of which he typically kept an inner circle of near him at all times to do his bidding.
===Slaad Lords===
Part of why Ygorl ruled Limbo by default was that the other slaad lords never challenged his authority as leader, perhaps because of the few demands the Lord of Entropy made or, probably, because most of them were too independent to want the role. Ygorl sometimes enjoyed Chourst's company and approved of his unpredictable senselessness since his behavior contributed to entropic chaos. Though Ssendam was his elder, Ygorl ignored the Lord of Insanity with surprising ease, though he may have cooperated with them in the past. Ygorl had also been grooming a death slaad named Sorel as his lieutenant in the hopes of, against his usual policy, unleashing her as the newest slaad lord. Already a true revolutionary that used terrorism and sabotage to break down lawful societies, Sorel, if Ygorl had his way, would become the Slaad Lord of Anarchy.
Ygorl despised Rennbuu since the upstart managed to become a slaad lord without him noticing and he couldn't figured out how. Still, he avoided the Lord of Colors due to his ability to alter slaadi into different types, a power even Ygorl feared. Though Bazim-Gorag brought chaos through death and ruin, Ygorl only tolerated his destructive nature so long as he didn't overtly challenge his rule. If not imprisoned long ago, the Firebringer would have inarguably been lured into a fatal confrontation ages ago. Wartle, a markedly weaker slaad lord whose regular rudeness to his peers had made him subject to violent retribution several times in the past, had lost a struggle against Ygorl before. The Lord of Entropy turned him into a meteorite and had him deposited in Celestia to be destroyed, though it was unclear if that actually worked.
===Others===
Ygorl had a constant companion in the form of Shkiv, a brass great wyrm that served as his mount. After the Nerath city of Arkhosia fell to ruin, Shikv, disgusted with human excess and in utter grief for his fallen kin, sought out Ygorl for revenge, and the Lord of Entropy accepted his service. Unlike most talkative brass dragons, Shkiv was melancholic and uncaring, coldly chaotic neutral and unconcerned with any matter not involving Ygorl, whom he served to the best of his ability and would fight to the death for. Shkiv never left Ygorl's side outside of them often separating during combat so Ygorl could savage his foes in melee, but such service had a steep cost. His wings were tattered, his scales tarnished, his flesh sagging from his bones, and his body twisted, shrunken, and prone to sudden bursts and transformations, all from prolonged exposure to the corrupting chaotic energy that swirled about Ygorl.
Ygorl was among the few slaad lords that looked beyond his own kind for servants, recognizing that all beings had a part to play in his plans. He would form alliances with all who would have him, normally asking the other party to do little besides spreading devastation, and picked the battles he did fight carefully so as to avoid the gods uniting to defeat him as they had done to others. Demon lords bargained with the Lord of Entropy with intent to bolster their own hordes with black slaadi and evil gods were known to make pacts with him to gain his own mysterious insights about the future in exchange for helping him in his bizarre plans.
==Worshipers==
In order to execute his plans, Ygorl required the service of the slaadi, but his own reclusive nature undermined his directive efforts. To assist in communication was the Voice of Ygorl, Skirnex, an intermediary and kind of psuedo-priest that espoused Ygorl's unfathomable wisdom. Some slaadi were willing to listen to Ygorl's words as interpreted by Skirnex, who hoped to share the secrets of entropy that only Ygorl knew. He had led many expeditions on Ygorl's behalf and survived, viewing his atypical longevity as a sign of the Bringer of Endings' favor, although Ygorl himself gave no sign that he recognized his prophet when he appeared, or of even having any recollection of his existence.
The black slaad was twisted and misshapen, with a stunted third arm growing from his shoulder and an almost palpable mist of wrongness surrounding his form, suggesting to some that he had possibly wandered somewhere in the Elemental Chaos that overlapped with the Far Realm, or that he got too close to the bottom of the Abyss and the shard of evil that laid there. He had also managed to gather a small group of Ygorl fanatics, gray slaad havocs known as acolytes of entropy, that worshiped the Lord of Entropy and coerced other slaadi to follow his commands. Such beings lived to spread disorder, physical and mental, having embraced destruction so thoroughly that them being injured caused bursts of chaos, something they might go out of their way to cause.
==Rumors and Legends==
When Ygorl became a slaad lord in ancient times, it was said that he reasoned that even a force as unharmonious as chaos needed a focal point from which to flow. Using powerful enchantments to give it shape and stability, Ygorl created the Spawning Stone from Limbo's purest essence, designing it to contain the essence of the slaadi and bind the race to it. Though the Spawning Stone provided the slaadi with a gathering point to rally and grow in number, it was also suspected to have a secondary purpose. Ages ago, the slaadi, as representatives of ultimate chaos, followed no set patterns for their forms, appearing in all kinds of shapes and sizes. However, when Ygorl (and likely Ssendam) rose to power, they realized that through random mutation, a slaad might be spawned that was even more powerful than them.
In order to ensure their dominance, they decided to limit their potential competition, perhaps taking a cue from the lich-queen of the githyanki, by altering the Spawning Stone itself. Though it didn't make the slaadi any more orderly, the tampering did make the race weaker as a whole and easier to control. The burning white runes on the Spawning Stone spoke of such limitations, although only some slaad lords knew of their true purpose. Despite the alterations, the chaotic nature of the slaadi meant that some slaadi mutants were born anyway; much like Ssendam and Ygorl themselves, the greatly mutated slaadi bore little resemblance to any of the commonly seen members of their kind. Some mutants were whisked away to secret nurseries and fed only raw chaos, although it was unclear if this was done by the slaad lords, or if the mutants were being hidden from them.
However, Ygorl's role as the creator of the Spawning Stone was not indisputable. Later reports stated that it was Primus who initially designed it to try and bring order to Limbo, and that Ygorl was one of the first slaadi to appear after it was unleashed. According to slaad legend, Ygorl came to exist at the end of the universe, and had been moving backwards through time ever since, although slaad origin stories were infamously contradictory with one another. However, even if Ygorl had no role in the Spawning Stone's burning runes, he and other ancient slaad lords, such as Bazim-Gorag, perhaps knew the reason for their existence. At the least, he and Ssendam had the power to reinstate a slaad's true form.
==Appendix==
===See Also===
* Well of Entropy
===Notes===
* Ygorl was created by Charles Stross for the Fiend Folio 1st edition.
* Ygorl had small parts in the anthologies Tales of the Outer Planes (1988) and Tales from the Infinite Staircase (1998).
* Ygorl appears as the main villain in the game Demon Stone, where he battles the party for the Silver Sword of Gith and the fate of Faerûn. One can visit his realm and battle him for the final battle. However, his depiction in the game does not match descriptions of him in the sourcebooks.
===Gallery===
Demon Stone concept9.jpg
===Appearances===
===References===
===Connections===
Category:Lords and ladies
Category:Inhabitants of Limbo
Category:Inhabitants of the Outer Planes
Category:Inhabitants
Category:Slaad lords