ECOLOGY

Environment any (Abaddon)
Organization solitary, pair, or holocaust (3–6)
Treasure standard (+1 unholy halberd, other treasure)

Obcisidaemons stand 25 feet tall, have a wingspan of 30 feet, and weigh over 15,000 pounds.

Ecology

When a mortal commits a true act of genocide in life and goes to Abaddon in death, it has a chance of forming into an obcisidaemon if it survives long enough as a member of the hunted. Such individuals rarely have trouble managing the unforgiving wastes, as they are willing to destroy any and all possible allies in order to ensure their own survival, making betrayal an impossibility and solitude an inevitability. This vicious soul eventually develops into an obcisidaemon—a lone, wandering mass of slaughter that acts as a harbinger of undiscriminating and unforgiving death to all who dare stand in its path. In life, the soul of an obcisidaemon perhaps only desired to kill a particular chosen population; as an obcisidaemon, however, the being seeks the obliteration of all mortals.

Peculiar to an obcisidaemon is the cloak of souls that seems to drip from its enormous body, a symbol of its destructive abilities that provides onlookers an idea as to the sheer scope of its murderous capabilities. When an obcisidaemon lays slaughter to entire populations, it does not feast on all of the souls at once, instead capturing victims for later use. When the fiend needs to unleash a particularly potent rampage upon a resistant population, it consumes its reserve souls in order to strengthen its powers and ensure its success in total annihilation.

Habitat & Society

Devoted to the wanton, systematic slaughter of mortals, most obcisidaemons serve the Horseman of War, who shares similar ideals. In her service, an obcisidaemon functions as a high-ranking officer at the head of an army of purrodaemons, so skilled are the harbingers of genocide at managing the pragmatic art of organized massacres. Sometimes, an amassed group of obcisidaemons instead trails behind an invading daemonic army, so as to ensure that no trace of the butchered mortals remains but ashes and salted earth. Obcisidaemons not only ensure that all life perishes, but that the land is thereafter uninhabitable by any other creatures as well.

Some obcisidaemons serve no particular member of the Four, instead choosing to function as independent agents of genocide. These beings wander from plane to plane, laying waste to one civilization after another. Some obcisidaemons intentionally spread their true names to the Material Plane, hoping for a foolish evil summoner to call upon them, knowing that no mere mortal could control their awesome power. Most such summoners end up among the first souls devoured and consumed into the cloud of tormented spirits that cloaks the now-rampaging obcisidaemon.

The obcisidaemon personifies the darkest elements of war. Obcisidaemons strip away the veneer of honor and battlefield glory, leaving only the brutal and violent pragmatism at its core, and then divest it of any humanity to reveal naught but scorched earth and genocide. Reflecting the disgraceful values of ethnic cleansing, depopulation, and all other forms of the clinical, systematic obliteration of civilian populations, obcisidaemons are among the most powerful members of daemonkind. These paragons of inhumanity arrive in the heart of great cities and leave only wastelands of rubble and ashes in their wake. Where an obcisidaemon walks, not even the ghosts of the dead remain to lament the destruction, for the daemon wipes out not only innocent individuals, but also their entire histories and bloodlines, ensuring that no future exists for its victims in any sense of the word.