Vucarik in Chains

Vucarik

Game background
Title(s)	Consort of Chains
Home plane	Nethuria Abyss
Power level	Demon Lord
Alignment	Chaotic Evil
Portfolio	Chains
Domains	N/A
Design details
First appearance	Hellbound: The Blood War
Settings	All Editions Dungeons and Dragons

Vucarik, also known as Vucarik in Chains and the Consort of Chains, is a powerful demon lord thought to be a son of Pale Night, in the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. He is, according to some versions of his history, the ruler of the 671st layer of the Abyss.

Description

The lord of the chains is Vucarik, a spawn of the infamous demoness Pale Night. Like most of his kin, Vucarik is a thinking demon. His specialty is finding links, secret connections between people and events. It is this expertise that allowed him to discover the properties of paedion chains in the Abyss. He knows many other secrets: if King Scotti of Keoland has a great, great grandfather who was seduced by a Yeoman witch whose worship of Baphomet creates odd potential transformations of her offspring under certain conditions, Vucarik will know it. If a djinni noble disguised herself as a mortal to escape the wrath of the brother she tried to kill, Vucarik likely knows her even after centuries as a Godsman factotum.

Relationships

If indeed Pale Night is the mother of Vucarik, then he would also be related to the demon lords Graz'zt, Lupercio, Rhyxali, and Zivorgian, as well as the demigod Iuz. The baatezu text Deceptions and Stratagems links Vucarik to the kytons of Minauros, suggesting he might be "tainted" with the blood of devils as well.

Worshipers

Vucarik has few followers outside the Abyss. Indeed, few have heard of him at all, and he prefers it that way. Vucarik would much rather forge his complex chains from the wildly moving shadows of his layer, in secret.

Realm

Vucarik rules the 651st layer of the Abyss, known as the Abyss of Chains, Nethuria, and Iron Liberation, but roams the entire plane at his whim. The sounds of metallic rattling always precede the coming of the lord and his chain-swathed host. Vucarik's battalion scours the Abyss (not to mention adjacent planes), seeking to inflict the tintinnabulous word of Vucarik on those who will listen. At his whim, he may elect not to kill those who he encounters, but send them forth as heralds or warnings instead.

Everywhere is thick vermillion storm clouds, a ferocious storm on a boiling dark sea. Across the sky stretch thousands of thick iron chains, lashing in the biting winds like striking serpents, occasionally breaking apart or weaving themselves together as if they were organic. The chains drip with viscous fluid and mucous-filled spray. Occasionally, metallic war machines are seen crawling across the chains like gargantuan beetles.

This is the terrible layer of the Abyss called the 671st by the Fraternity of Order, also called Nethuria after its previous ruler, or Iron Liberation after the town of Carcerian emigrants known on their native plane as paedions.

Paedions have been brought into this layer en masse. The more chaotic Abyss allows them freedom like their kin never had, but at a terrible price. The Abyssal energies bring their chains to an unnatural life, so that each link becomes a writhing iron worm, each independent from the others. These worms burrow freely in the flesh of the paedions, who now have no natural weapons to defend themselves, although they will just as eagerly burrow into any other fleshy thing. The will of the layer's ruler causes the iron worms to writhe around one another, as well, creating vast the living chains that stretch across miles of swirling miasma, violently swinging and whipping about in the demon winds, occasionally breaking apart so that rogue chains tear at hundreds of others, flinging millions of worms into the void.

Worm Statistics in the 671st Layer

• Iron Worms: tiny vermin. Hit Dice 1/4d8 (1 hp). Speed 20, AC 24 (+2 size, +2 Dex, +10 made of iron); Attacks Bite +4 melee, Damage 1d3-5, Face/Reach 2 1/2 ft x 2 1/2 ft/0 ft, Special Attacks: Burrow, rend; Special Qualities: Vermin, Acid resistance 25, Fire resistance 20; Saves: Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +0; Abilities: Str 1, Dex 15, Con 10, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 2; Skills Climb +17, Hide +3, Spot +7; Feats Weapon Finesse (bite); Organization chain gang (8-16); CR 1/4; AL CE

• Burrow (Ex): An iron worm can attempt to burrow into the body of a creature it hits (with a successful Grapple check). If it succeeds, it causes 1 point of damage every round until it is killed. Worms attacked while burrowing lose their dexterity bonus, but damage is halved (half goes to the victim).

• Rend (Ex): A chain gang of iron worms can act in concert. If at least three are burrowed into a victim, they can link together and attempt to tear the victim apart, causing an automatic 1d3 points of damage per round.

Publication History

Vucarik was first mentioned in Hellbound: The Blood War (1996). Vucarik received further details in third edition in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss (2006).

Additional Reading

• Jacobs, James. "Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Graz'zt." Dragon #360. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2007. Available online. [1]
• McComb, Colin. Faces of Evil: The Fiends. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1997.

External Links

• The original source of this article at Wikipedia
• Vucarik's Domain at Wizards.com