![[Pale Night.png]] **The Mother of Demons, The White Lady, The Queen of Night** **Alignment**: Chaotic Evil --- ### Overview **Pale Night** is an ancient **obyrith** demon lord of such immense age and alien horror that reality itself rejects her true form. She is often called the _Mother of Demons_, the _White Lady_, and the _Queen of Night_ because she predates the tanar’ri and is regarded by many as a progenitor of demonkind. Her true form is so hideous that even other demons shrink from it; what mortals see instead is a shimmering, white, diaphanous shroud that suggests a feminine outline but conceals unimaginable wrongness beneath. Pale Night rarely speaks, and her motives, actions, and desires are enigmatic even to those who serve her. She is capricious, malevolent, and unpredictable, sometimes slaughtering trespassers without reason and other times manipulating events through inscrutable means. --- ### Domain and Influence Pale Night resides primarily in a structure known as the **Bone Castle** on the **600th layer of the Abyss**, the **Endless Maze** — a region she has occupied since before **Baphomet** became a demon lord. The Bone Castle is a towering fortress of pale skeletal fingers and bones forming an immense grasping hand, protected by hordes of crawling claws and animated bone constructs. She also exerts influence over the **471st layer of the Abyss**, **Androlynne**, a realm where she once trapped a generation of **eladrin** children and now fights against celestial forces that seek to protect them. Pale Night’s presence warps reality; her domains are places of silent terror and creeping dread, and her influence is felt through cults that seek to tap into her alien power. --- ### Symbols and Icons ![[PaleNightSymbol.png|300]] No canonical holy symbol exists for Pale Night in official sources. Imagery associated with her often involves blank, featureless veils or flowing white shrouds, representing her undefined and unknowable nature. --- ### Worship and Tributes Cultists devoted to Pale Night are rare and secretive. They may be malevolent spellcasters obsessed with breeding new fiends or harnessing her alien essence to create bizarre half-fiend spawn. Worship typically takes place in hidden or forsaken places, and those who attempt to venerate her often do so through acts of corruption, ritualistically inducing madness or creating unique monstrous progeny. --- ### Clergy and Cults Pale Night’s clergy lacks formal structure. Her followers are few and isolated, often driven by private obsessions that revolve around ritual creation of strange fiends or the pursuit of eldritch power through contact with her veiled presence. They act independently rather than as organised churches, and are as unpredictable as Pale Night herself. --- ### Powers and Abilities Pale Night’s powers are unique among demon lords: - Her **true form** is so horrific that reality itself masks it — viewing her without protection can drive mortals insane or kill them outright. - She emanates an aura of madness and confusion that overwhelms those near her. - Her **touch** drains personality and hope, leaving victims hollow, despairing, or faint echoes of themselves. - She can ensnare souls within her shroud like a **magic jar**, possessing or rendering them into spectral stasis. - Pale Night rarely fights directly, preferring manipulation and psychic domination, but if pressed she can traverse battlefields at uncanny speeds, possessing hosts recklessly or revealing her true essence to devastate minds. --- ### Treatment of the Faithful Pale Night values those who can help her forge new breeds of fiendish life or expand her influence through corrupted creations. Her followers may be granted occult knowledge about demonspawn and fiend-shaping rituals, but they are also subject to her capricious cruelty; displeasing her may lead to madness, abandonment, or worse. --- ### Myths and Legends Pale Night’s origins reach back into the era of the **obyriths**, primordial Abyssal entities that ruled before the tanar’ri took dominance. She stood apart from the internal wars that followed, brooding in isolation even as the obyriths dwindled. Texts of uncertain reliability claim she is the progenitor of some tanar’ri, such as **Graz’zt**, **Lupercio**, **Vucarik in Chains**, and possibly others, though these claims are not confirmed and her true reproductive history remains mysterious. Other sources suggest she may metaphorically represent the source of demonkind itself rather than literally giving birth to all demons. She has no known lasting alliances but is respected and feared by other demon lords, who rarely interact with her and treat her with caution rather than enmity. --- ### Encounters with Pale Night Encounters with Pale Night or her influence are traumatic and often lethal: - Explorers lost in the **Endless Maze** may stumble upon the Bone Castle, inadvertently drawn into the domain of the Mother of Demons. - Arthropod horrors and bone constructs guard her stronghold. - In **Androlynne**, the presence of trapped eladrin and celestial defenders makes crossing her lands dangerous and surreal. - Her cultists may approach mortals with bizarre quests—sometimes offering arcane knowledge, other times attempting to ensnare souls into her service. --- ### Conclusion Pale Night is a unique and enigmatic demon lord of the Abyss whose age, alien nature, and inscrutable power make her one of the most terrifying entities. Known as the _Mother of Demons_, she dwells in the Endless Maze within her Bone Castle and occasionally exerts influence over Androlynne. Her form is veiled by cosmic necessity, her motives are unfathomable, and her legacy is woven into the deepest mysteries of demonkind. ---