Vorkannis the Ebon:
An arcanoloth I've been using as the main, underlying villian of my ongoing Planescape campaign.
Vorkannis is unique as far as arcanoloths go, by virtue of having a nearly jet black coat of fur, rare among color patterns for the fiends. His eyes are a piercing reddish pink color (almost like a reverse albino. Jet black fur with the reddish eyes common for albino animals) , and several glowing gems orbit around his head, all of them magical.
He dresses in finely tailored wizards robes of cobalt blue, black, and charcoal grey trimmed in silver runes and abstract patterns that cover most of his body save for his head, clawed hands and feet. Tucked into the waist of the robe he has a number of wands and magical rods. He holds a small blue gem about the size of hens egg that follows him about, floating near him when not held in his hand. Of the three other Arcanoloths in the cabal that saw him rise in the Yugoloth ranks, he holds the most personal power and ambition, but prefers to remain behind the scenes, hidden, holding his abilities secret or at least uncertain in the eyes of any rival. Until recently anyways...
He always seems to be followed by a patch of shadows, the light in a room dimming with his passing, as either his form, or robes seems to draw in ambient light letting him literally skulk in the shadows of a room regardless of the situation most of the time.
He recently ascended to the position of Oinoloth, by a web of guile and treachery, butchering the opposing forces of Yugoloths loyal to both Mydianchlarus, then the current Oinoloth, and Anthraxus the Decayed, the former holder of the Seige Malicious. Not only those Yugoloths loyal to him and his fellow conspiritors aided in this blood bath, but the forces of the Hag Countess of Baator and the Mother of Serpents, the hydra of legend formerly held captive in Elysium till freed and cowed to his Will took part in his rebellion and saw swing the heads of a thousand ultraloths upon the ramparts and spires of the Wasting Tower.
Since then he’s been changed into something… else. Neither truly remaining an Arcanoloth, nor becoming an Ultroloth, he has retained his physical form seemingly, but his mind has tasted to corruption of the throne of Khin-Oin and his thoughts more and more like those of an Ultroloth.
The shadows that always followed him around previously now seem to resemble more blotches and motes of whispy shadows trailing from the main umbral cloak surrounding him almost like the physical manifestation of an artists rendition of a cloud of plague spores.
He’s without peer the most powerful, and most evil of the three, now four Arcanoloths he conspired with to take the Seige Malicious. (the others being Shemeska the Marauder, Helekanalaith the Keeper of the Tower of the Arcanoloths, and Shylara Akt'Atarm)
He’s been both a father figure, teacher, and lover for his protégé the Arcanoloth Shylara Akt'Atarm, newly ascended as ruler of the Tower of Incarnate Pain in Carceri. Admittidly it's debateable if he actually cares for her other than to create a loyal ally in a place of power whom he has been able to select and breed for the position he’s placed her in to give him a known quantity in the ranks below who would normally jostle for his position at the soonest sign of weakness on his part.
"But still, regardless of my present situation and my recent ascension as Mistress of the Tower of Incarnate Pain, I am preoccupied. My thoughts flee their surroundings and I cannot help but dwell upon my Master, my teacher and my lover, Vorkannis the Ebon, Oinoloth of the Wasting Tower.
He took me under his wing, teaching me as a protégé, and acting not unlike a father to me. Might be possibly have been? And indeed I considered it for a time. But no, I fought my way up the Yugoloth hierarchy like most of my fellows, not born into my station, but rather having seized it through a millennia of struggle, triumph, treachery, and ultimately purification.
Did he have ulterior motives in taking me into his confidence, or what passes for that mortal word here among my kind? Most certainly he did. And indeed I shared my body with him a hundred thousand times. I whored myself to him like some slavering, shrieking Tanar’ri slut in the arms of an Abyssal Lord...
And so he asked me, ‘What is it you want? A question we might ask some mortal seeking youth or beauty or wealth or power over one’s enemies. But turn inwards and ask yourself the question. Is there something you want? Or is the process of wanting itself that drives us? The eternal envy of others, of seeing another fall, of killing another just to see his own drive for power blunted and shattered as the light fades in his eyes and he realizes just what has happened?’
Ambition was never something he lacked, indeed I might say he embodied the true essence of what it meant to be a Yugoloth. He seemed distant from the game we all played, watching with a smug, knowing, aloof contentedness right up until the moment he would plunge in his fist and tear away from some soon forgotten other just what it was he wanted. And then he would sneer and laugh at this lesson he had taught us." -Shylara Akt'Atarm speaking of Vorkannis the Ebon
Hubris describes his personality. Pride, ambition to a fault and ruthlessness tempered with patience and a surreal wisdom and forethought. In fact, even among his fellow Arcanoloths and the Ultroloths who now chaff under the rule of this 'lesser' fiend, he is an utter mystery. He seems to have appeared from nowhere, not having previously been recognized among the Yugoloths ranks in his rise to power.
He simply appeared out of the hinterlands of the Grey Waste possessed of a drive to power and knowing things he simply should not have known.
"I still have so many questions about him, that I dare say I may never have answered. None of us yet know really where he came from, or where he rose to power, and what indeed was the fate of Bubonix and Cholerix. They are dead, that we all are certain of. But the manner of their passing, and what the Ebon took from them before they uttered their last gasp… that I do not know.
And where he learned the language of the Baern, for that is what he called it, we do not know. I always had assumed the Baernoloth to be a myth we ourselves created to spread among the celestials and the other fiends to increase our own status and to waste their time as they scoured tomes and the hinterlands of the Waste searching for our hidden, mysterious progenitors. What does it say if they do truly exist? And what more does that say of The Ebon…" - Shylara Akt'Atarm speaking of Vorkannis the Ebon
Fluff aside (and I've got some 50-60 pages of notes regarding the plot and him. *grin*), his stats are somewhere along the lines of an advanced male Arcanoloth, wiz 20, or thereabouts with a whole host of unique traits.
