Pale Night
Pale Night, also known as the Mother of Demons, is an Demon Prince(ss?), both enigmatic and unbelievably ancient. In Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, it was revealed that she is a member of the demonic race called the obyriths.
Pale Night's form is incorporeal, and she appears as an empty flowing white shroud with the suggestion of a shapely female body underneath. It is said that Pale Night's true form, as befits an obyrith, is so hideous and terrifying that reality itself rejects it. The shroud that she "wears" hides it. To glimpse Pale Night's true form risks madness and death.
Ancient texts claim that Pale Night is the mother of Graz'zt, Lupercio, and Vucarik in Chains. If she is indeed the mother of Graz'zt, she would also be the grandmother of Iuz, and possibly the mother of Rhyxali. Other texts make the bold claim that the entire tanar'ri race is descended from her in some way. However, Pale Night speaks only very rarely and has not confirmed any of this. She also seems to have a mutual defense alliance with Baphomet.
Pale Night lives in a bone castle which sits on a vast plateau in the Endless Maze of Baphomet, on the 600th layer of the Abyss. She has a strong alliance with Baphomet, the Prince of Beasts, and has lived on his layer since long before he became a demon lord. They do not work together, but each will defend the other's home from assault. Pale Night's castle looks like a giant grasping hand and is guarded by ambulatory bones and appendages. She rarely leaves this castle. It is said that those who stumble into her domain become new guardians for it.
Pale Night also rules the 471st layer of the Abyss, called Androlynne. Long ago, by guile and trickery, she trapped a whole generation of eladrin children on her layer with the intent of hunting them down one by one at her leisure. Since then, the layer has become a battlefield between the forces of the demoness and the celestials that have come to protect the children. This may have backfired on her because the amount of good people fighting on her layer to protect the eladrin children is causing the alignment of the layer to shift to good, which may eventually cause it to shift out of the abyss and to another plane. Unless that was her plan all along? It's hard to tell, she doesn't even talk to gloat, really.
Worshippers of Pale Night are rare; most of them are malevolent spellcasters obsessed with creating new breeds of half-fiends to unleash to the world.
The Demon Princes of Dungeons & Dragons | |
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Tanar'ri | Baphomet • Demogorgon • Doresain • Eltab • Fraz-Urb'luu • Graz'zt • Juiblex • Kostchtchie • Lolth • Malcanthet • Miska the Wolf-Spider • Orcus • Sess'innek • Shaktari • Turaglas • Yeenoghu • Zuggtmoy |
Obyrith | Dagon • Obox-ob • Pale Night • Pazuzu • The Queen of Chaos • Sertrous |