My take: Dandy Will is not a tiefling. Instead, he is the middle child of three males born to a rogue night hag. The youngest was a hideous, feral beast of a hagspawn left stranded on the Prime when his mother was destroyed by a mortal mage. There are few details on the eldest son, but rumors place him at various locales on the Upper Planes.
A bit more brief this time. *softly snarls at the board*
Dandy Will is only mentioned in Planes of Conflict
My thoughts on what he might be:
1) A mortal puppet ruler of the city, being controlled by either a covey of Night Hags or a powerful group of 'loths, possibly the Oinoloth himself
2) He's a mortal puppet ruler of the city, being controlled by a Baernaloth who resides in the restricted central portion of the palace
3) He's a mortal who holds power because of some device or artifact that is hidden within the palace, perhaps of Baern creation, that he somehow managed to figure out and use. What it does, and what complications and cost it may inact on him and the population of the city itself are open questions.
4) He's a shapeshifted arcanaloth or ultroloth
5) Dandy Will doesn't exist. He's a smiling, unassuming lie taken form. A mind altering falsehood that exists as the metaphorical smile on the face of a fiend before to rips out and devours your soul. Oh there's ... something... within the palace that's controlling the town, and Dandy Will is the face that the world sees, even if he doesn't exist except in the minds of the people living there.
Perhaps the loadstones of misery focus something upon the center of Center. Perhaps something is bound and contained at the heart of the city, locked into the fabric of the palace much like another city in Gehenna (whose name escapes me, the one where violence isn't possible by overt means) is said to contain the essence of a powerful yugoloth, possibly an earlier oinoloth, or a baernaloth. Perhaps another Baernaloth turned traitor to their kind before Apomps at is sits, locked away in Center. Perhaps the other Baern turned traitor on it and locked it away, being unable, collectively even, to kill it. Perhaps the Yugoloths, while the chosen and ultimate creations of the Baern, were not their first creations. Where then did the mistakes of the Baernaloths go? Perhaps not destroyed but locked away.
There's something at the heart of Center, and it cannot be a good thing...
IMC: I've chosen one of those above, possibly a mix of two of them. For my players, don't worry it doesn't have ramifications for you all. I'll mention Dandy Will in one of the upcoming storyhour updates, but largely in passing.
Of course, that brings up the question as to what exactly *Vorkannis* is... :D
another city in Gehenna (whose name escapes me, the one where violence isn't possible by overt means)
I believe that's Portent, on Mungoth, the Third Mount.
And then the Lord and Lady came to blows, and the Lord left Sigil, never to return. Some identify the Lord of Despair with Aoskar, and assume him dead. Others speak of another city of doors that connects only with the three glooms of the Waste, which blossomed in the center of that plane overnight like a gargantuan pale flower. They speak, too, of the lord of that city, who appears in the shape of a tiefling but never seems to age or die.
Others decry these ancient leaves as a clumsy forgery, pointing out that they include references to words, musical themes, and even instruments that were not popular in Sigil until very recently. Then they look at me very pointedly and say "Stop making things up! You'll confuse people who might think this crap is canonical or something." But I just sit patiently at my keyboard and say nothing, because disclaimers are boring.
Others decry these ancient leaves as a clumsy forgery, pointing out that they include references to words, musical themes, and even instruments that were not popular in Sigil until very recently. Then they look at me very pointedly and say "Stop making things up! You'll confuse people who might think this crap is canonical or something." But I just sit patiently at my keyboard and say nothing, because disclaimers are boring.
*giggle*
Disclaimers however remove your chances of having people repeat stuff you've written back at you when they attempt to strip it of context and claim the exact opposite. I tell you what, those are fun times if I ever saw them. I'm up to two of those incidents in a year. In related news, I like mocking people.
But you're exempted Rip, because you write seriously cool stuff.
But I just sit patiently at my keyboard and say nothing, because disclaimers are boring.
You should just put a disclaimer in your sig that, unless you actually cite a source, you just made everything in your post up. Of course that would take away the ego boost of having people confused enough by the quality of your work to require clarification as to whether it was professionally produced.
In faded manuscripts of forgotten songs, the Lady of Pain is sometimes paired with a consort, the Lord of Despair. The lyrics are obscure, mentioning rains of poison flowers and choirs of dabus devoted to secrets and punishment.
Man, if I tried including this in a game with my group, the entire campaign would devolve into a series of Cure jokes after about 10 minutes. :D