Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Mar 09, 2004 11:53:29	Is the minotaur-demon's realm detailed anywhere? thanks!
#2 zombiegleemax Mar 09, 2004 14:00:13	Not that I know of. Maybe in Faces of Evil or Hellbound?
#3 Shemeska_the_Marauder Mar 09, 2004 14:39:40	A quick look through Hellbound and Planes of Chaos didn't seem to have any details on his realm. I'm not sure that it's ever been detailed, aside from which layer of the Abyss it lies in.
#4 zombiegleemax Mar 09, 2004 15:54:39	thanks guys, I even checked the 1e MM but it just tells us it is a maze, with some places differing from another. I know one of the more ancient fiends--a primordial mother goddess type--lives there as well, so I guess it shouldn't be considere "his" per se...
#5 ripvanwormer Mar 09, 2004 16:36:19	Originally posted by me at canonfire. Baphomet Baphomet is the demon prince of mazes; a lord of vengeance, battle, secrets, and lust. He is both a powerful tanar'ri and a minor deity. When worshipped openly, Baphomet is commonly portrayed as a giant with the head of a goat or bull; however, his cult more commonly operates as a hidden part of a more accepted faith, revealing itself only to selected initiates. Servitors of Baphomet, which include numerous tempter demons such as incubi and succubae, enter an existing church in secret, offering power to those they find corruptible. New construction is the most obvious sign of Baphomet's influence, though even the other clerics rarely know of the true extent of the mazes hidden within. Baphomet prefers warrior religions like those of Alia, Heironeous and Hextor; the fallen cleric employs wizards or demons to mask his soul's growing affinity with chaos from magical divination. During the years of the Suel Imperium, especially, Kord's followers were a popular choice for corruption, and it is said that it was then that Kord lost his bull-god aspect. Since then, Kord has been a special foe of the demon prince, and rooting his influence out has been both the source of some of the Kordites' most noble victories and their greatest political disasters as the temples of other gods have been left devastated in the brawlers' righteous wake. Mosques devoted to Zuoken and Al-Akbar and even Istus have also occasionally hosted heretical Baphomet cults. Cultists of Erythnul and similarly inclined gods and demons are rarely victims, though they may be allies or rivals. In all cases, the evil cleric watches for those who care more about glory and power than their faith in their god, and begins to hint at mysteries beyond those accessible to initiates. A cleric who takes the bait is brought to a secret shrine either within the greater temple complex or somewhere else, such as a cave shrine. Within, a maze pattern is built on the floor which the acolyte is instructed to walk; this is a magical pattern which seals the first part of the bargain. As the acolyte advances in the new disciplines the corrupt cleric teaches, he or she is made to perform ever more complex rites which began to involve dripping not a little life-blood along the patterns. The mazes get larger and ever more intricate, and the initiation into demonomania is finally completed with the drinking of the blood that flows through myriad channels and conduits to the altar; the blood has many sources, from other priests to captive innocents. All cultists drink from the same cup. Some fail the tests the corrupted clerics give them. Those who are not killed are made to walk a special maze whose shape and form is older than Baphomet himself. This Elder Maze is empowered to transform humans and other younger races into minotaurs. Minotaurs According to myths kept secret by cultists of Baphomet and a handful of other dark gods and infernal beings, there was a time when only giants ruled the Oerth and the planes beyond. It was a time of raw elements, before the worlds were habitable by mortals or even gods in the sense we understand them today. Eventually new gods were spawned, some say by accident; they began to transform the lands into places more like those we know today, and they drove the giants from their ancient steadings into the wilderness. The giants glared at their transformed homes from deep forests, mountain peaks, volcanoes and clouds, and brooded. The most cunning and wrathful of the giants looked on the new races that had begun to populate the lands they held dear, and concocted a scheme. Rites would be created that would infuse the younger races with something of the elemental strength and fury of giantkind; these new creatures could be servants of the giants, new parts of the old order. So the race of minotaurs was born. With features superficially similar to both bulls and ogres, minotaurs were something new, dumb servants and carnivorous horrors. Some did serve the giants, but other entities learned of the rites and began to create minotaurs for their own advantage. Some of the Suloise Mages of Power are known to have held the secret for a time, creating many minotaur troops for the battles between houses and with other nations; magic-users as distant as the mage-king Acherak (or Acererak) are thought to have known it. And lower planar beings such as Geryon and Diirinka, and of course Baphomet, made the process famous. The ritual can take many forms: runes carved into flesh, an eldritch song or melody (Geryon's method of choice), a dance, even a drink. Baphomet made the rite into a maze. Although minotaurs can also procreate as other races do, enough are created using the rituals of the Elder Giants that the idea that minotaurs are a result of an ancient curse of some sort is known to one and all. Bloodlust Filled as they are with ancient elemental power, minotaurs are constantly torn by inexplicable rage. Their forms, similar to giants as they might be, are not really meant to contain that sort of energy, and their minds are shattered by it. Bloodlust fills their hearts and eyes; their howling craving for flesh overwhelms almost everything else. Almost everything. Despite their wildness, minotaurs are also, at a fundamental level, servants. They will bow to the being who creates them or anything obviously more powerful, scraping and whimpering like cowed dogs. Between their cannibalistic frenzies and simpering supplications, there is little room in a minotaur's life for human or even giantish culture; nevertheless, some culture is retained. There are reports of elaborate murals covering the walls of minotaur lairs, of droning songs the servants of Geryon never taught them, of tattoos and pottery and body paint and even jewelry: torcs and arm-rings and nose-rings. These creatures, who are so much like beasts in almost every way, pour a surprising amount of humanity into their art and crafts. Minotaur Lairs Minotaur lairs are traditionally built in mazes, as befits servants of Baphomet. The natural cunning and heightened senses of the minotaur race makes them very good, even supernaturally so, at finding their way through the torturous twists, dead-ends, and cul-de-sacs of a labyrinth; this is one of the primary reasons Baphomet employs them. Even those minotaurs whose origin has nothing to do with the demon prince are often put into or gravitate towards mazes and mazelike tunnels because the environment gives them such an advantage over their prey. The minotaurs Baphomet creates are all male, and the Elder Curse is inherited only by their male descendents. As is explained further below, women usually have a different role in Baphomet's church. Minotaurs of Baphomet will capture the females of other races to breed with, a messy and sometimes fatal experience, though ogre females tend to make out fairly well. Minotaurs with other origins usually do have females of their race; Geryon, for example, keeps breeding pairs of minotaurs both on the mortal plane and in his own stygian palace. Minotaurs are able to walk soon after birth. They are left to run around unattended by the adults, forced to steal scraps of meat whenever the older minotaurs' attention wavers. They learn most noninstinctual activities by observation or by instruction from masters of other races, although minotaur craftsworkers will tutor youths who show an interest in their work. Orcs, norkers, and ogres sometimes pay homage to Baphomet as well. The Maze of Revelation Besides the mazes of initiation and the maze of the Elder Curse, a final type of labyrinth is found within most temples of Baphomet. This is the maze of revelation; secrets are revealed to those who walk it, secrets of other times and places and secrets of voluntary transformation. These mazes, it is said, are created not by Baphomet but by a more ancient power that acts as his consort; the female aspect to his male. Some of those who complete it have reported higher wisdom, new insight into magic, and a new purpose in life. Many don't complete it at all, but exactly what happens to those who vanish within is unclear. Nuns of Baphomet Twisting, spiraling abbeys are dedicated to Baphomet. The nuns within serve in a very unusual capacity: as breeders. The nuns are organized into choirs: the lowest-ranking choirs are made to mate with minotaurs and twisted satyrs, while those of the highest choirs mate with demonic rutterkin, bulezau, and ghours. Nuns are assigned to one choir or another based on their endurance and health. The nuns of Baphomet serve their dark lord wholeheartedly. Most often, they're recruited from destitute peasant villages, their needs and the needs of their families taken care of in exchange for their bodies. Their minds are kept in an enchanted ecstasy, and in such a state they go recruit others. Female children of nuns are expected to become nuns themselves, although some manage to escape with their minds intact. Although they are often tainted with unhuman blood, they are often the most courageous of warriors against demonic encroachment. An abbey of Baphomet is ruled by an abbot, who is a cleric, sorcerer, or demon of mid to high-level. He and the lesser magic-users below him, if any, summon the stud demons the abbey needs to continue its work. He is also in charge of the servants and stable-hands that care for the lesser stud creatures. Witches Witches recruited by servitors of Baphomet are most commonly solitary practitioners of the dark arts; they almost never organize themselves in covens. They and what males they charm into serving them build maze-groves like those of the elder druids, consecrated to a new horned master. Normally a witch's spells are small and petty, but more powerful ones are known. These are the ones who have sought out secondary masters, such as one of Baphomet's daughters or his consort Pale Night. Prophetic Heads A quirk of cults of Baphomet is the oracular head, often taking the shape of a goat, bull, or demon skull. These magical items are capable of casting a commune spell once per week, contacting one of Baphomet's trusted sages. Enhim Rila Deep in the Crystalmist Mountains near Sterich is a hidden city of dark elves. Unlike their cousins to the south, who mainly revere Lolth and Graz'zt, Enhim Rila is dominated by the cult of Baphomet. Enhim Rila was founded by refugees of Drahulad, a drow city conquered by vampiric servitors of the demon prince Orcus. Rejecting both the Black Prince that had conquered them and the Prince of Shadows who had failed to protect them, they accepted the offers of the eager minions of Baphomet that seemed to anticipate their arrival in the mazelike corridors near the River of Restless Sleep in the Vale of Shrouds. The resulting stronghold is even more labyrinthine and confusing than the limestone caves it was built in. It is closer to the surface than many drow settlements - the River of Restless Sleep is sometimes lit by the sun during part of its course - and the dark elves often venture topside on moonlit raids. There are no streets as such, only sequences of doors and often hidden entrances that the elves know as they're privileged to know, or as they discover or puzzle out for themselves. Often the primary prerequisite for advancing to greater social status is simply finding the way to a more prestigious area. The largest dwelling complex in their city - not that anyone living knows enough of its convoluted expanse to realize it - is the Abbey of Hope, where generations of drow girls have given themselves to demons, even glabrezu, nalfeshnee, and - it is rumored - a flameless balor. The city is apparently ruled by the inhabitants of the Bowge of Sorcerers, a school of magic and mazecraft, but, unknown to all lesser drow, the sorcerers rely heavily on the advice of the abbess of the Abbey of Nocturnal Suffering and her hand-picked nuns. Primarily, though, the culture of Enhim Rila is dominated by males. Lord Zanthelem, a demon-touched drow with curving ivory horns so large as to prevent him from leaving the chambers in which he was born, is the most powerful conjurer in the city and the current ruler of the Bowge. On the other side of the social scale are the monsters - fomorians, verbeegs, minotaurs, hook horrors, and ogres who are used purely as cannon fodder in the dark elves' plays at dominating the region. Many of the minotaurs are descendents of human slaves - even former nobles of Sterich - taken back and forced to walk the Elder Maze, which elves are immune to. Of those taken by the dark elves of Enhim Rila, only one was released voluntarily. This was Pelnor Falconbrood, a baron of Sterich of the Earl's own blood. When the earldom was invaded by hordes of giants - at least in part working for the drow of Enhim Rila - Baron Falconbrood fled to the demesne of his Keoish relatives. Unbeknownst to them, he had already been taken by the drow and transformed mentally into a breeding stud. His relatives soon either died or fled their lands, refusing to admit anything was wrong. In new tunnels dug beneath the keep, the new baron began hiding his minotaur sons. Investigations from the crown have failed to turn up any peculiarities thus far, though one younger son is organizing teams of delvers to explore the caverns near Baron Falconbrood's old lands. The Endless Maze of Baphomet The 600th layer of the Abyss - known to some as Labrys, the Hellbrynth, and Minauros (in an apparent attempt to usurp some of Mammon's followers) - is a constantly shifting and rearranging labyrinth with no ending. It takes many forms as it crosses many terrains - low walls, high walls, walls of wood, walls of stone, walls of ice, walls of steel, walls of water, walls of pure magic - but it is always ensnaring and maddeningly difficult, except, of course, as far as minotaurs and Baphomet's other chosen are concerned. It is said that the Endless Maze resembles in some sense a pentagram in form, with five major realms surrounding an inner realm ruled directly by Baphomet himself. This may be so, but the boundaries between the realms don't seem to be fixed - they're connected by portals that shift as the mazes do. It could also be that the layer listed as the 600th is properly six different layers, which would give Baphomet more than even Graz'zt or Demogorgon, but those who associate raw power with the amount of demonic real estate one controls dismiss this idea. Even which known realms belong to which "point" of the pentagram is disputed, though most group the aquatic realms in one point, the fiery realms in another, the forested realms in another, the subterranean points in another, and the airy realms in the last. The Daedali The daedali are the mysterious architects of the Endless Maze. They direct the laborers - often living minotaurs, undead minotaurs, and the Abyssal spirits of minotaurs used indiscriminately - to build and rebuild the walls, and are said to even be able to command the walls directly through force of will. Exactly what they are is subject to some debate in demonology circles - there are reports of what look like human wizards standing on high spires, gesturing importantly as the walls dance to their tune - but most assume the daedali are powerful demons, perhaps some of Baphomet's lesser young. Others have suggested that the bebeliths whose nests are confirmed to exist in the Maze have somehow been recruited by Baphomet to lend their engineering skills to the problem of his layer of the Abyss. Bebelith webs have been discovered with unusual textures and properties, and nowhere more than in the Endless Maze. Regardless, their influence is not just a local one. On occasions Baphomet has seen fit - or been able to muster the power - to send some of these enigmatic artisans to the physical plane to build labyrinths of fiendish complexity and uncanny intelligence for favored servants. The Tower of Bone The Tower of Bone travels throughout the Maze of its own accord, long skeletal legs ensuring it is never seen in the same part twice. The Tower is the home of Pale Night, the ur-demon said to be mother to numerous princes, including such potent entropic figures as Lupercio, Graz'zt, and Vucarik of Chains. Despite her age and might, Pale Night (sometimes called Old Night, especially in reference to her consortship of the demonic force of the six hundred twenty third layer known only as Chaos) prefers to lair within the realms of other demon lords, with whom she often spawns yet more powerful children. In recent millennia, her consort has been Baphomet. She visits him rarely, spending most of her time in her tower of bone, but she occasionally involves herself in his cults on the Material Plane, offering a final sanctum within the labyrinth of his faith. The Sea of Treachery The Sea of Treachery is an aquatic region of the Endless Maze. It looks like a vast, mostly shallow ocean filled with poisonous, spiny isles that limit the movement of a boat. The gimmick here is that every member of a group experiences the maze differently, so that what might be a wall for one person is an opening for another. This makes it impossible to cooperate in getting out of the maze, so everyone has to take a separate vehicle - or try to walk the isles without the terrain poisoning them to death. This treachery of sensation doesn't affect minotaurs or minions of Baphomet. Aquatic demons are a common threat, and mariliths direct lesser serpentine demons from the poisonous isles. The Sea of Treachery is ruled by Sargonnas the Reaver, a son of Baphomet and Pale Night. He resembles a sahuaghin with four prominent horns and void for eyes. The Sea of Confusion The Sea of Confusion is another marine labyrinth. The waters here are deep and apparently bottomless, but interrupted by walls of freezing fog that do 3d10 points of damage every round one remains within. As one might guess, divination spells, magnetic compasses, and planar compasses are useless here. Underwater, the freezing fogs are replaced by walls of actual ice. Sometimes these depths contain a portal out. Demons and Abyssal elementals of both water and cold are common here. The Dark Wood The Dark Wood is a deep, primeval forest with towering trees that almost match those of the elven afterlife, except for their obvious torment and corruption. In places the wood is so thick as to be impassible, and therein lies the maze. Some of the plants will attack those who try to hack through them, but most are inert - the primary danger here is found in the shape of wolves, minotaurs, greenhags, and forest demons of all sorts.. The Terror Caves The Terror Caves are a subterranean realm similar in appearance to the plane of Pandemonium, and it's possible that they were once part of that stygian domain, dragged across by Baphomet's emerging strength, but they're different in a number of ways. Rather than being filled with howling and flesh-tearing winds, the noise of the Terror Caves is dampened regardless of the source. All is silence, making things unsettling for both predator and prey. The Forest of Frenzies The Forest of Frenzies is ruled by Kabad-or, Lord of the Forest. He looks like nothing so much as a demonic parody of Obad-hai. Abyssal boars stalk the unwary, and fiendish satyrs and korrids play their mad games. Owls and crawling insects emerge from the undergrowth to act as animate, biting walls, shepherding their victims into a confusing network of narrow choices. Space and depth play strange tricks here, limiting a visitor's use of his wisdom and dexterity. Many of the natives go into berserk rages at the sight of ready victims. The Mystery Caves The Mystery Caves are ruled by Anghou, the Shepherd of Souls. A son of Baphomet and Pale Night, Anghou greets the souls of the newly damned who enter Baphomet's maze through an astral conduit whose entrance is shaped like a sucking mouth. The Mystery Caves are a quiet, subdued place where manes and other spirit forms journey to destinations that Anghou and his servitor nalfeshnee select for them. Mortals who try to navigate the Mystery Caves may find themselves slowly transforming into manes or bodaks, unless they quickly find their own way out. The Palace of Knossus The Palace of Knossus, named for a legendary location on a mortal world, is the core of the Maze and the place of Baphomet's throne. The walls and portals of this innermost maze shift much more rapidly and frenetically than those of the others, as if the substance of the layer was panicking at the presence of intruders so close to its living heart. In general, the Palace resembles the home of a wealthy mortal lord in its furnishings and architectural styles, although occasionally a door will open into something much wilder and elemental, like other parts of the mazes. The Underkingdom Underground tunnels of collapsing earth and stone, fiendish earth elementals, tormented pech and burrowing demons. Bull-headed spiders lurk in the catacombs, stalking tanar'ri and mortals and being stalked in turn by bebeliths. Icari The winged demons who serve Baphomet are known as the Icari. He cares little for them and takes little care for their survival or comfort within the endless maze, but they serve their purpose as messengers, scouts, and aerial cavalry in skirmishes with other demon lords. Nemesis Spirits It is said that every soul has its own special nemesis, its very own personalized and hateful destruction, and they all roost somewhere in Baphomet's maze. Nemeses don't necessarily resemble those whose end they seek; often they're incorporeal, or take a variety of shapes. Ordinarily, they remain within the maze unless somehow released, either by a powerful conjurer or by the entrance of their mortal prey. Those who enter Baphomet's maze of their own free will free their nemesis to leave and search the planes for them. Pale Night Old as Pazuzu and Abraxas, old as the Abyss itself, Pale Night resembles a beautiful demon woman whose white robes contain utter nothingness. Though she has the power to conquer a dozen layers of the Abyss or more, she prefers to live within the layer of a consort, acting from secrecy. They say that Pale Night aided her grandson Iuz when he would have died of exposure on the northern steppes, and that she introduced him to his consort Zuggtmoy. In the canons of the Church of Everlasting Light, Pale Night is named as one of the chiefs of demons who tried to prevent Pholtus from retrieving the moons and the sun. The earliest known consort of Pale Night is the elder being known simply as Chaos, a howling, eight-armed maelstrom that dominates one of the oldest remaining layers of the Abyss. Abat-dolor serve Pale Night in her Tower of Bone, considering her - as the mother of Lord Graz'zt - to be an honorary member of their demonic race. These beautiful, ebon-skinned humanoid demons are brave knights and warriors, unusually reliable by demon standards due to their isolationist, clannish nature. Most serve Graz'zt, although some companies have remained independent. Pale Night's personal guard left the rest of their race with their mistress long before Graz'zt had begun conquering his layers, and are unaware of the schism that has developed between those who serve Graz'zt and those who do not. Rumors of Madness Demons recently summoned from the abyssal mazes have suggested that Baphomet has gone mad; that he no longer rules in his own palace; that his inexplicable rages have destroyed large sections of the labyrinth; that he has become little more than a wild beast. The source of all these rumors is Baphomet's son Phlurge, the Duke of Thunder. Disinherited after Pale Night's children began taking over the points of the endless maze, Phlurge fled to a nearby Abyssal layer filled with storms and metal shards and began plotting his return home. Making an alliance with the gaseous shape-changing demons native to the layer, Phlurge learned stealth and disguise. He shed the form he was born with, that of a large bull-headed fiend, and became misty and subtle himself. In this shape he reentered the Maze of Baphomet. There, he has been sowing discontent and ill confidence among the natives. In the form of a succubus, or a glabrezu, or a minotaur he regales the other demons with tales of Baphomet's senility. It is irrelevant to him whether or not these stories are true - he may not even know himself. The fact that few in the mazes have ever had any kind of contact with their mysterious overlord, especially in recent centuries, makes these rumors all the more believable. Orcus and Graz'zt Graz'zt and Baphomet are bitter rivals since Baphomet sided with Orcus in a dispute over an elven artifact called the Moonblood Periapt, which supposedly held a portion of the blood that inadvertently created the vampire god Kanchelsis. In return for territory in Pandemonium, Baphomet contributed a cabal of wizards to Orcus' staff who unriddled the artifact before Graz'zt could. The resulting magic transformed a clan of wood-elves into vampiric spawn which eventually came to dominate the drow city of Drahulad. Some of the refugees pledged themselves to Baphomet, something the lord of mazes was counting on. In retribution, Graz'zt destroyed Baphomet's embassy in Azzagrat and began instructing his servants to build mazes of their own, a motif he had avoided in respect for the truce he had with his mother's consort. Graz'zt's palace itself soon grew a suspicious resemblance to Baphomet's own Knossus, and he began learning the art of weaving spells into architectural shapes. Pale Night has stood aloof from this. Orcus and Baphomet, on the other hand, have cooperated irregularly for millennia. Many of the crypts of Orcus' followers are arrayed with Baphomet's trademark maze-magic. Yeenoghu The terrible rivalry between Baphomet and Yeenoghu began early in the Prince of Carrion's career, when the ruler of gnolls and ghouls tried to seize Pale Night's Tower of Bone. His armies were completely routed, but Baphomet took the incident as a personal insult. He began harrying the layers controlled by the other lord - the Salted Wound and the Seeping Woods - and hasn't stopped since. Both demon lords have instructed their respective followers to kill each other on sight, and also attempt to convert them to their cause. Thus, tribes of cannibalistic minotaurs or maze-dwelling gnolls are not unknown. Minotaurs, gnolls, and ghouls who serve other patrons generally share little animosity towards one another, and indeed may work together on occasion. Geryon Geryon, also known as the Beast or Behemoth, is the Hunter of Hell, the Horned King of the Fifth Circle. Or, at least, he was; he was recently ousted from office by Asmodeus himself in favor of his long-time rival, the aquatic monster Levistus or Leviathan. Geryon still lives, however, in the icy Citadel Coldsteel, and like a dog kicked one too many times plots revenge against his master. This may have been Asmodeus' plan all along. After long years of unthinking obedience, Geryon is finally learning the true ruthlessness required in a lord of Hell. Geryon's trademark is his minotaur servants, who he exercises absolute power over using his enchanted horn. The lawful-evil minotaurs who worship him on the mortal plane have a culture and tradition completely alien to Baphomet's minions, a fact that frustrates the Prince of Mazes to no end.
#6 zombiegleemax Mar 09, 2004 20:13:41	Wow, that's a damn fine read. Nice job.