Lords of Dust
The Lords of Dust are the powerful ur-fiends of the Dungeons & Dragons setting of Eberron who rule over all fiendish creatures. They are roughly comparable to the Demon Princes and Archdevils of the Great Wheel, except they have largely all been imprisoned in various places in Eberron's version of the Underdark. They maintain vast cults that have secretly been working for tens of thousands of years to free them from their prisons.
The twist compared to their counterparts that they are far more "cosmic"; each Lord of Dust is literally a living nightmare (but on a whole other level to the Quori) - a manifestation of an archetypal evil and/or fear. As a result, this makes the the closest thing to confirmed "gods" in the Orrery, as they are literally unkillable; you can destroy their avatars, but they'll always respawn, which is why they were sealed away in Kyber, from which they were spawned.
List of Overlords
As with many things in Eberron, the Lords of Dust are left generally vague, with their numbers in particular being left undefined. Still, a number of these fiendish overlords have been described in some detail over the course of Eberron's various editional corebooks and Dragon Magazine articles, with the single largest collective source of details and names to be found in Chronicles of Eberron, the second Eberron splatbook (third if you count Dread Metrol, his Eberron/Ravenloft crossover mini-setting) written by keith Baker for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition after Wizards of the Coast revealed what lazy bastards they were going to be with settings that weren the Forgotten Realms that edition.
According to the Chronicles, these are the currently known Lords of Dust:
- Ashtakala: Described as simply a fiendish stronghold in the Carrion Wastes in earlier sources, Chronicles reveals that in Keith Baker's version of the setting, The Demon City is itself an overlord, a living embodiment of the archetype of "evil city".
- Ashurak: Introduced in the Chronicles, The Slow Death embodies the fear of disease and is the patron of the demonic cult-tribe known as the Plaguebearers.
- Bel Shalor: Possibly the single-most well known overlord, The Shadow in the Flame embodies paranoia and the evils of mistrust and suspicion.
- Dral Khatuur: Embodying all the terrors of winter - endless nights, killing frost, the maddening cries of the hungry wind - she is rightly known as The Heart of Winter.
- Eldrantulku: Embodying discord, strife and the evils that spawn from ambition, jealousy and paranoia, he is known as The Oathbreaker.
- Katashka: The Gatekeeper embodies all fears of death and the undead.
- Masvirik: Embodying the fears of all taht slithers through the dark and cold, The Cold Sun is simultaneously the mammallian races' fear of reptilian and venomous vermin and the reptilian races' fears of cold and death.
- Rak Tulkhesh: Embodying the fears of war, bloodshed, violence and rage, The Rage of War has a strong presence on Eberron.
- Ran Iishiv: The Unmaker embodies the fears of change, chaos and destruction, existing to tear down what is present to such a degree that even the other Lords of Dust don't want to let it out.
- Sakinnirot: A living embodiment of hatred, The Scar That Abides promotes feuds and vendettas - the bloodier, the better. It is festering anger, patient fury, and the burning hunger for revenge.
- The Spinner of Shadows: Embodying hungry ambition and hidden schemes, the Spinner is implied to be essentially an Eberronian reskin of Lloth, just as the Daughter of Khyber is to Tiamat.
- Sul Khatesh: The Keeper of Secrets embodies all of the fears and superstitions surrounding magic and magic users. You'd think that wouldn't be a very strong fear on such a widely magical world as Eberron, but there you go.
- Surash Ka: Called simply The Lurker in Shadow, he embodies fears of the unknown and the unknowable, which also makes him by extension the ruler of all fears of water and sea beasts.
- Tiamat: Called simply The Daughter of Kyber, Tiamat embodies both the humanoid fears of dragons and the fear dragons have of themselves and their abilities. As such, she is the overlord the dragons of Argonessen are most determined to keep sealed away.
- Tol Kharash: Often mistaken for Rak Tulkhesh, The Horned King also delights in war and bloodshed, but is the embodiment of tyranny, not rage. He may be a reinterpretation of Baphomet, given his strong association with minotaurs.
- Tul Oreshka: Overlapping some with Surash Ka, The Truth in the Darkness embodies mortal fears of things unknown, unbearable truths, and knowledge or feelings that one would kill to keep private.