Osalth

Art by Ace!

(Oh-sal-th)

## **Summary**

Osalth is well known for his title of “The Lord”. He is an extremely large black dragon who resides domain over Death, Water, and Murder. Osalth takes pleasure in the murder of other creatures, forcing fear into their veins to kill them where they stand. Osalth is a lord of death, living in the deep swamps of Lethea, it is not rare for him to force other dragons to kill their kin when they are weak. He depends on power over creatures, being granted the title of “Lord” from a local elf king as a form of bargaining, Osalth resides domain over several towns in his swampy area, forcing the people who live there to give sacrifice to him at any random moment.

## **Description**

The largest black dragon to exist, Osalth is a child of Dothis. He stands at a total length of 70 feet from tail to mouth, with a wingspan of 150ft. His large black scales absorb all sunlight that hit them, with his darkest scales (on his legs) apparently being able to show you the darkest reaches of space. His teeth are all hollow, filled with corrosive acids that drip out with every bite. The most powerful cultists who worship Osalth and the dragons who pay homage to him will sometimes perform a ritual known as “The Taste of Death”, where they will voluntarily be bitten by Osalth and injected with his venom. If those creatures are able to survive it, their blood will be mostly that acid, and can corrode outside structures. However, these creatures do not live for a very long amount of time, as eventually their kidneys are corroded away.

Osalth is manifested in the imagery of a large black goat with twisted horns and pure black eyes. Sometimes, if a gemstone is shown to represent Osalth, Black Lapis Lazuli are embedded in the sides of the goat; meant to represent murder.

## **Personality**

Osalth is a being of cruelty and torture. In many stories portraying him, he is seen to be either an antagonist or a force of great evil, even amongst the stories given inside of the dragon pantheon by other Black Dragons. Osalth is supposedly the oldest of all Black Dragons, as well as being the firstborn of Dothis. He is the only firstborn dragon to still exist as a god, as the other direct children of Dothis were eaten by her at different times.

There exists only a single story where Osalth was not able to kill something that opposed him: the story starts with a Tiefling who was confronted by Osalth during a murder spree. Osalth was intruiged by this Tiefling, as this was during The Great Migration, and thus Osalth had not seen a Tiefling before. After asking the name and family of the creature, the Tiefling was able to make fun of the God, even after he introduced himself as a supreme being. No amount of tormenting words or wicked evil-eyes pierced the hubris of this Tiefling, and it is said that Osalth was so utterly enraged and humiliated that he retreated to his lair to plan how to get back at the Tiefling. But not before forcing the Tiefling to eat a rock that was larger than his palm, which he did.

## **Powers**

Osalth is the oldest and most powerful pure Black dragon in the entire universe. The true scope and scale of his power is not completely known, as he boasts that he has never had to use all of his power on any creature or god before him. All demonstrated powers where shown during The Rise of Reout, when Dothis ordered him to become a general of his army, Osalth single handedly destroyed the original capital city of Lethea, Una Thalor. In his siege of Una Thalor, his acidic breath was able to corrode all the way through the Illuminite walls of the city, and his aura of fear was able to overcome even the bravest of Paladins. Supposedly, he even was able to override the Wish spell with his own counter-wish, a feat only possible by beings of supreme intelligence.

## **Realm**

Osalth has his own realm in Hades, as well as several Demiplanes both created by him and invaded and taken over by him. Yet, despite all of these hand-trimmed lairs to his being and his existence, he choses to live in the Great Swamps of Lethea, as he is able to then converse with humanoids that may come across his path. It is uncommon that he will find cultists who had been stalking him without his knowledge, and was confused or angered when they refused to try and kill him. Osalth will typically “enslave” these creatures by forcing them to torture each other or their families for his amusement, before leaving them alone in muddy puddles or pits of tar to rot away. Osalth especially enjoys Paladins and Clerics, as the process of torturing them and breaking their faith is what gives him the most joy.

## **Relationships**

Osalth used to love his mother, Dothis. However, after he was kicked out of her realm in The Nine Hells for the 6th time, he grew an annoyance for her and her presence. There have been several sending stones that were sent to him by lowly kobolds from his mother that asked if he had been eating healthily or if he was making sure to eat all vitamins that a “healthy dragon boy” needs. These sending stones have since been shattered to hundreds of different pieces or melted in the hottest of forges. Dothis still thinks that her son doesn’t know how to work a sending stone, and is sending them with instructions on how to make them and how to send one to her. Oddly enough, through the eons that had gone by of sending stone travel, it has been the same Kobold that has been delivering the messages, known as Pip, The Royal Messanger. Pip has sometimes made sending stones to send back to Dothis impersonating Osalth that sent large amounts of love and replying to the sending stones that were sent to him to make Dothis feel better.

## **Covencana Slough**

The swamp that Osalth lives in is known as Covencana Slough, which is located in the direct center of The Great Swamps of Lethea. Covencana Slough has been inhabited by Osalth since the end of the 1st age. The entire swamp is said to have pits of mud that can move under creatures and open up under them, swarms of locusts, mosquitos, and bloodflies that inflict disease and plague to anything around the swamp, and shoals of piranhas that will only eat the legs of leg born creatures. The skies are permanently dark, as if the entire region is in constant eclipse, and some trees are animated to be able to grapple creatures and slowly feed off of their body as a food source. The realm used to be the center of a trade route, but since Osalth moved into the town near the center of the Slough, no non-draconic creature has dared to make their home in those swamps without serving Osalth.

## **History**

Osalth is the firstborn child of Dothis, and the only living true child of her. It is said that his soul is so old and powerful that it would power a star for 3 years. When the child was first born, he was able to resist Dothis from trying to eat him alive, and fought back. From this fighting, Dothis kept him as a servant, before adopting a motherly personality towards him. The two had a long loving relationship, where Osalth would conquer

realms that existed near him, made a home for himself in Hades, and even sometimes went to the Material Plane to torture random humanoids. But, his grandfather Reout one day attempted to rise from Hades and destroy the material plane; during this event Osalth was forced by his mother out of her realm and to be a general of his army. Osalth immediately destroyed the capital city of Lethea before not knowing exactly what to do. He attempted to return to Dothis’ realm on a multitude of times, but was never allowed back into his realm in Dothis’ domain. Instead, he made a realm for himself in the material plane, and takes out his anger on random creatures that pass near or around his domain.

## **Notes**

There are many occults to Osalth, the largest and oldest of these groups is known as “The Order of the Black Goat”