DM: Spent the campaign setting up Tharizdun as the secret evil power behind all the baddies The Party: Captured and interogated one of the cultists who reveals the Chained God's goals to destroy the whole multiverse. The Fighter turned to the party and said, "No Donny , these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of."
According Gygax's Gord the Rogue Series; Tharizdun gets released into Greyhawk only to be tricked into an eternal struggle on another plane with Entropy itself by Gord which represented the end times of the Greyhawk setting, and Gord went to a sister plane of Oerth called Earth. The parallel planes of Oerth were Arth, Earth, Irth, Oerth, Urth, and sometimes Yrth. When I told my niece this she said, "That sounds so made up!" I said, "Well, yeah. All these things are made up from a certain point of view." Btw if you are curious about the series. Don't. Don't read them. Don't look for them. You'll thank me. If you must then at least start with Book 6' "Sea of Death", at which point the series not only becomes bearable but actually interesting. On a side note; Tharizdun is also the subject of one of the D&D Cartoon's from the 80's.
Are you talking about Vengors master, the whirlwind of energy accidentally released by the cavalier? He is never named, but I always thought of him as Tharizdun.
It's also worth noting that the last few "Gord the Rogue" books by Gary Gygax also deal with Tharizdun quite explicitly, and his version diverges quite significantly from the later WotC-derived lore.
Perfect timing - I'm running a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign and have decided to change the Salvage Operation adventure to feature the Cult of the Chained God instead. Thanks for the great info!
The Elder Elemental Eye made an appearance in the 1st Edition AD&D G3 Fire Giants module. It seemed that the Drow in the module were affiliated with the Eye, but by the time the adventure leads to D3 Vault of the Drow, Lolth is introduced as the Drow's patron. The Elder Elemental Eye angle was inexplicitly dropped.
I have a idea for a new video. According to the dnd 5e monster manual, only 24 solars, powerful angels, exist. You could make a video about the solar and describe all 24 in detail.
I think Gygax stated (ca 2002) that he never intended Tharizdun and Elder Elemental Eye to be the same entity (at least that's what is said on the wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun).
Tharizdun is actually a key component of my home campaign. 4 out of the 6 players I have are noobs (sorcerer, wizard, monk, & fighter) and one of my players wrote an ambitious backstory where he 'absorbed' the Elder Elemental Eye. Normally, I would outlaw a backstory so OP, but I wasn't gonna throw away a chance to hit my players with the Chained Oblivion! The other two players (cleric & rogue) caught on quick and realized how deep the party was in trouble. It makes for some great tension & roleplay with the cleric acting as a advisor and the rest of the party (the bunch of chaotic fools they are) growing from trash gremlins into some legit heroes. Hope they can stop him :)
THARIZDUUUN!!! A deep lore! Long have I sought this! I feel it is so much more compelling than 5e Avernus and the vague Shadowfell combined! There is a sense of doom there that does not sleep!
Great video as always Jorphdan! Glad to have your lore video cover Tharizdun. Always wanted to use this god for my warlock's plans. And with your help now one step closer.
Nicely done. I'm looking to run a homebrew game revolving around a evil/corrupted druid. Tharizdun "Elder Element Eye" sounds like a great source for fleshing out the details! Keep up the great work!
hi all, there is a reddit post about funny D&D stories, one of them was about an evil party and they were conquering the world, the final battle was in a big city (like WaterDeep or Baldurs Gate), Elminster was there fighting agains the party... and, one of the players was an evil cleric, that wanted to unleash Tharizdun... and he did. The DM just closed the book and said, ok the campaign is over. If someone has the link please share it, it was an awesome post to read.
Tharizdun is possibly one of my favorite D&D villains. I'm not sure of the sources, but I remember a version of Tharizdun who had more complex motivations and personality. His world view being that there should be a Separation between Gods and Mortals, creating the Astral Dreadnaughts as a way to keep Mortals out of the divine realms. He sees the universe of DnD as inherently flawed (due to the concept of Time and that things will eventually die), so he wants to get rid of the current universe and replace it with a new Everlasting one. TL:DR Tharizdun became a God of Decay and Destruction so he can create a new world that has no Decay and Destruction
I'm told there are mixed messages as to whether Tharizdun and the Elder Elemental Eye are actually the same being. They seem to have different divine Domains...Tharizdun has Death, Evil, and Force, which don't really line up with the element thing.
i've been wondering. Haven't played much in a long while, but i like to keep up with the lore. Given the happenings "lately" in the Realms, are the writers setting up for a future Cosmic Upheaval (Edition change)? This is pieced together from several conversations over years, i'll try to keep it short but coherent. Shar is not just just Darkness and Shadow, she is Oblivion. She is the absence (end) of all things. She doesn't just want to rule everything, she wants to destroy (unmake) it all. She orchestrated the assassination of Mystra using power borrowed from Outsiders to prevent Mystra (and even Ao) from stopping it. Why? And how? Has Shar been listening to the whispers of Tharizdun for centuries? Being badgered until he started "making sense"? Or possibly, did she find the Shard in her delving of the Shadow, exploring where none others would even care to go, and getting instructions from Other whispers? Certainly i could go further, but that would take pages of space. After watching this video, it made me think of why a goddess would behave in a way to threaten the existence of her own sphere.
im a fan of Cyric the Mad God, and this history mirrors the story of Cyric very much. Tharizdun and Cyric both exist in the Forgotten Realms, with similar histories, is this just an over sight by some of the writers? Did they plan on coping large elements of Tharizdun to make the Cyric story?
I believe Tharizdun is in the background of the second gord the rogue novel by Gary gygax, where Gord is looking for one of the 3 parts of an artiffact that could free Tharizdun.( I read the novel a while back, so please correct me if I am wrong)
Is the word 'entropy' used that way in the text or is that just you Jorphdan who uses that word here so often? Since it seems to be used very wrong here in the video. Entropy is neither chaos, nor evil, and not even destructive, and yet it seems to be used as synonym for all those things multiple times here. Other than this the video was interesting.
Actually it is used in the text to describe Tharizdun. A quick look at Google and I believe WotC is going off this definition. "lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder."
I preferred the way the original WG4 module left it up to the DM and players on how to deal with THARIZDUN. This 4th edition stuff just sounds like bad Dragonball Z fanfic.
Me too! I'm currently running princes of the apocalypse for my players. Ever since I learned more about Tharizdun and The elder elemental eye my hope is to have the campaign stretch to lvl 20 for them to have an encounter with Tharizdun.
I see no reason why gods can't be warlock patrons, they just choose not to because they have better options available. Face it, a god has more control over a cleric than over a warlock.
Unpopular opinion: can we get less screentime of you (like not at all), it breaks immersion for me, one second watching the epic picture of an old God, the next looking at a dude speaking ... or at least, like decrease the size (like in twitch?) else, I love your videos.
Really wanted to watch this, but since you can't even pronounce the name correctly (the emphasis is on the middle syllable per Frank Mentzer Dragon 93) I am going to pass.
Wait, I am confused. I am taking notes for a game I am running. If this Black Cyst was underneath the ancient temple, how is it floating in mid air? Are the pictures just misleading, or am I misunderstanding? Great Video though!
There were no pictures, but I think after they unearthed it it was hovering in midair. Either that or they tunneled into a cavern where the black cyst lay
@@josephfernandez8015 like the abyss, it depends on how close you are to tharizdun's pad (paterson) I guess, I'm across the bridge from it, it's not so bad, though every once in a whole you might be listening to gunshots instead of the popping of the engine of a drag racing car or fireworks, but you'll never know unless you watch the news the next morning... we have decent food even if everyone likes to shit on us for making disco fries and claiming poutine is superior and we stole it (first off no we didn't, poutine uses curds, we use straight up cheese, I'm not saying it isn't better though, it's just... I like my discount poutine sometimes, it wasn't mean to be frou frou food to begin with, it's comfy -comfort food-, let it be comfy dammit) and we also have some nice pockets of scenery like some appalachian mountains and some historic residences, I've got three historic landmarks right in my town not even an hour's walk away from my house, on's like seven blocks away, even if a lot of it is NY's dumpster. So yes, we are the abyss, but some of mount celestia peeks through anyway...
I like to think that Tharizdun realized how awful the Obereths really were which is why he tried to control them and failing that his madness has led him to believe that the only option left is to destroy the whole universe. He's trying to be a good guy, but...you know...crazy logic.
Tharizdun must be the D&D inspiration for Sargeras in World of Warcraft - a god that seeks to save the Universe/Multiverse from it's own failings - by destroying it.
@@WhatWillYouFind Ra's al Ghul. He literally has Ra's al Ghul's motivation that he's had since the 70's, the Marvel studios people just didn't want to use Thanos' comic book motivation: simpery over Death, and chose instead to just transplant Ra's's personality and motivation but make it universal instead of limited to just Earth.
Thank you so much for this lore dump! I had no idea POTA was standing on the shoulders of older published works. If that 1e conversion is released please do link it.
Of course he ended up in the Forgotten Realms. Everything does. *sigh* Oh well, at least if Wizards continues to ignore the actual good campaign settings they own then they can't do any more damage to their lore, and it's not like Forgotten Realms can become any more of a mess.
Perfect. My high-level players just became aware of some far realm entities are working towards the release of Tharizdun in my campaign to facilitate the destruction of the player character's home sphere. You just provided a fantastic starting point for me if they choose to look into this hook.
So how do the Gord of Greyhawk books factor in to this? In those books Gord eventually frees Tharizdun so that he can destroy him, but fails and Oerth and Greyspace fall to the demons. In the process Gord is killed but is resurrected in another prime plane. Greyspace is sealed off with Tharizdun and the Lord of Entropy inside, with the intention that they will be destroyed when Greyspace collapses at the end of time.
Great timing! Tharizdun is one of the plot threads in campaign that I'm running and so far most of my research has been from Greyhawk Online. And now one of my players has finally gotten his character's backstory to me after a year and a half and it involves the archfey the Queen of Air and Darkness, who I read in one source was corrupted by Tharizdun. Would you be able to do a lore video on the Queen of Air and Darkness at some point?
If Tolkien earned a penny everytime someone copied from him he would be richier than Bezos and Tesla combined. Cant belive how many times his gods, ideas, monster and creatures have been adapted to other franchises.
Was planning on using Tharizdun as my BBEG in my Wildemount campaign. Happy I’ve gotten all this context to flesh the villain and who he’d reach out to in order to gain his power!
There may be some missing lore: in 4e, during the Essentials Revival attempt, they released “Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale”, which included creatures created by the Voidharrow through an Abyssal Plague. It was then used as a worlds-spanning event that impacted the core setting, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, and potentially others. It spawned six novels, a D&D Encounters campaign, and I believe two articles in Dragon Magazine from that time. I loved the abyssal plagues story line, and would love to see it formally reintroduced to 5e. I’m actually running a campaign involving the Voidharrow and the Abyssal Plague in my home brew setting.
Not gonna lie all those nicknames for Tharizdun sound metal as fuck.
THARIZDUN is metal AF, everyone just forgot
Guy's STD created the Abyss. He is metal AF.
It was the 80s, so yeah…
DM: Spent the campaign setting up Tharizdun as the secret evil power behind all the baddies
The Party: Captured and interogated one of the cultists who reveals the Chained God's goals to destroy the whole multiverse.
The Fighter turned to the party and said, "No Donny , these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of."
I didn’t see that coming but great reference
"We believe in NOTHING"
The dude abides
Tharizdun is my favourite god, he's so evil and deranged that it's kind of endearing.
User name checks out...
Have you seen the yellow sign?
He is like an old senile grandpa.
@@beckaldo8741 Exactly
And not completely deranged either. He's got an actual personality and character to him, with beliefs about the world and an end goal.
Imagine being so op and destructive that you get time out outside of the universe
That would be what happened to Morgoth/Melkor from LotR lore, so it has precedence.
Tharizdun is where D&D goes Lovecraft.
Let's be honest, he's basically discount Azatoth.
then wahts the Far Realm?
Or Atropus...or...
There is a ton of Lovecraft in D&D...they literally had Dagon.
@@StarFyreXXX Plateau of Leng + Dreamlands
@@StarFyreXXX basically anything outside Solar System, so Keroro The Sergeant Frog is qualified
Jorphdan: Tharizdun is about to make a comeback.
Me: (looks at critical role) yeah, sounds 'bout right
According Gygax's Gord the Rogue Series; Tharizdun gets released into Greyhawk only to be tricked into an eternal struggle on another plane with Entropy itself by Gord which represented the end times of the Greyhawk setting, and Gord went to a sister plane of Oerth called Earth. The parallel planes of Oerth were Arth, Earth, Irth, Oerth, Urth, and sometimes Yrth. When I told my niece this she said, "That sounds so made up!" I said, "Well, yeah. All these things are made up from a certain point of view." Btw if you are curious about the series. Don't. Don't read them. Don't look for them. You'll thank me. If you must then at least start with Book 6' "Sea of Death", at which point the series not only becomes bearable but actually interesting. On a side note; Tharizdun is also the subject of one of the D&D Cartoon's from the 80's.
Are you talking about Vengors master, the whirlwind of energy accidentally released by the cavalier? He is never named, but I always thought of him as Tharizdun.
@@temmy9 Yes. If I recall he is referred to as "he who must not be named", which is often used to refer to Tharizdun.
@@agemmemnon100 I agree. That was a cool representation of him too. scared the shit out of me as a kid.
It's also worth noting that the last few "Gord the Rogue" books by Gary Gygax also deal with Tharizdun quite explicitly, and his version diverges quite significantly from the later WotC-derived lore.
Perfect timing - I'm running a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign and have decided to change the Salvage Operation adventure to feature the Cult of the Chained God instead. Thanks for the great info!
The Elder Elemental Eye made an appearance in the 1st Edition AD&D G3 Fire Giants module. It seemed that the Drow in the module were affiliated with the Eye, but by the time the adventure leads to D3 Vault of the Drow, Lolth is introduced as the Drow's patron. The Elder Elemental Eye angle was inexplicitly dropped.
Finally some greyhawk lore.
All these faerun youngins' just don't know
As someone from New Jersey, thats fair
I placed the lost temple of Tharizdun in my Revonar Campaign and it was awesome.
I have a idea for a new video. According to the dnd 5e monster manual, only 24 solars, powerful angels, exist. You could make a video about the solar and describe all 24 in detail.
I think Gygax stated (ca 2002) that he never intended Tharizdun and Elder Elemental Eye to be the same entity (at least that's what is said on the wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun).
For Worst place in the multiverse you had it right the first time.
Tharizdun is actually a key component of my home campaign. 4 out of the 6 players I have are noobs (sorcerer, wizard, monk, & fighter) and one of my players wrote an ambitious backstory where he 'absorbed' the Elder Elemental Eye. Normally, I would outlaw a backstory so OP, but I wasn't gonna throw away a chance to hit my players with the Chained Oblivion! The other two players (cleric & rogue) caught on quick and realized how deep the party was in trouble.
It makes for some great tension & roleplay with the cleric acting as a advisor and the rest of the party (the bunch of chaotic fools they are) growing from trash gremlins into some legit heroes. Hope they can stop him :)
As a Jersey native...I agree.
Lol at 1:40 when you popped in from the bottom of the frame made me laugh 😂
Great video as always
😁
Could we get some lore on Kara-Tur's Gargantua?
Imo it sounds like a fun topic.
"making a resurgence" as if it's not the BBEG of Critical Role campaign 2.
Spoilers man. Some people may not be caught up or not have watched it yet. Probably best to tag your comment with spoilers or something
THARIZDUUUN!!! A deep lore! Long have I sought this! I feel it is so much more compelling than 5e Avernus and the vague Shadowfell combined! There is a sense of doom there that does not sleep!
Great video as always Jorphdan! Glad to have your lore video cover Tharizdun. Always wanted to use this god for my warlock's plans. And with your help now one step closer.
Nicely done. I'm looking to run a homebrew game revolving around a evil/corrupted druid. Tharizdun "Elder Element Eye" sounds like a great source for fleshing out the details! Keep up the great work!
hi all, there is a reddit post about funny D&D stories, one of them was about an evil party and they were conquering the world, the final battle was in a big city (like WaterDeep or Baldurs Gate), Elminster was there fighting agains the party... and, one of the players was an evil cleric, that wanted to unleash Tharizdun... and he did. The DM just closed the book and said, ok the campaign is over. If someone has the link please share it, it was an awesome post to read.
My favourite D&D content creator by far. Keep up the great work Jorphdan.
Thanks!
Second edition had a section about him in the DM's guide to Necromancer's. My favorite and most used resource.
Wow, that was a GREAT video on a classic being. THANK YOU!
Thanks!
I love Tharizdun lore and this is different than what I’ve known in the past. Quite a perfect over arcing source of evil and chaos though!
Bro you read my mind, this is going to be one of three plots in my next campaign and I was just starting to do some research. I love it
P.s. I'm super happy that you've decided to continue with the face-to-face, for me personally it makes the content that much easier to consume.
It makes editing a lot easier, if I can get into a grove of writing scripts I'd like to put out two videos a week. We'll see!
Thanks for the awesome video! I am a few sessions into running Princes of the Apocalypse, so I am sure this info will come in handy.
"Tharzdunn's inability to focus is what truly chains him". If that ain't a metaphor or adhd and debt......
Tharizdun is possibly one of my favorite D&D villains. I'm not sure of the sources, but I remember a version of Tharizdun who had more complex motivations and personality. His world view being that there should be a Separation between Gods and Mortals, creating the Astral Dreadnaughts as a way to keep Mortals out of the divine realms. He sees the universe of DnD as inherently flawed (due to the concept of Time and that things will eventually die), so he wants to get rid of the current universe and replace it with a new Everlasting one.
TL:DR Tharizdun became a God of Decay and Destruction so he can create a new world that has no Decay and Destruction
I'm told there are mixed messages as to whether Tharizdun and the Elder Elemental Eye are actually the same being. They seem to have different divine Domains...Tharizdun has Death, Evil, and Force, which don't really line up with the element thing.
You didn’t mention how he was the main villain of the Gygax’s Gord the Rogur series...
This is the BBEG in my current campaign. Thanks for the video!
Very welcome!
@@Jorphdan As a follow up, I'd love to see a video on Shothragot if you're open to digging deeper.
Dude, I just came to your page like 5 days ago looking for lore on Tharizdun. How you be in my mind? Great video! Thanks!
YO was that reference image for the cyst from Arrival? Amazing movie
That New Jersey slam was brutal 🤣
Nice job as always!
Thank you! Cheers!
Tharizdun is also clearly the explanation for Pathfinder's own Destroyer God, Rovagug the Rough Beast.
Bit like how Jyggalag was turned into Sheogorath.
i've been wondering. Haven't played much in a long while, but i like to keep up with the lore. Given the happenings "lately" in the Realms, are the writers setting up for a future Cosmic Upheaval (Edition change)?
This is pieced together from several conversations over years, i'll try to keep it short but coherent.
Shar is not just just Darkness and Shadow, she is Oblivion. She is the absence (end) of all things. She doesn't just want to rule everything, she wants to destroy (unmake) it all. She orchestrated the assassination of Mystra using power borrowed from Outsiders to prevent Mystra (and even Ao) from stopping it.
Why? And how?
Has Shar been listening to the whispers of Tharizdun for centuries? Being badgered until he started "making sense"? Or possibly, did she find the Shard in her delving of the Shadow, exploring where none others would even care to go, and getting instructions from Other whispers?
Certainly i could go further, but that would take pages of space. After watching this video, it made me think of why a goddess would behave in a way to threaten the existence of her own sphere.
im a fan of Cyric the Mad God, and this history mirrors the story of Cyric very much. Tharizdun and Cyric both exist in the Forgotten Realms, with similar histories, is this just an over sight by some of the writers? Did they plan on coping large elements of Tharizdun to make the Cyric story?
Really love your videos. Thank you!!
Glad you like them!
'5 through 10... Level that is' that's hilarious
Lmao nice sneaky New Jersey joke
Demagorgen was the first soul that became a tenari, he was not a promotional
Tharizdun might be the best beginning for my Vecna-fused unspeakable evil; now I need to figure out how to do it.
You've got this 👍
@@theophrastusbombastus1359 It's still taking time because there's no margin for error
Damn I mean if he couldn’t handle the demons that’s kind of underwhelming from what I originally thought about him.
I believe Tharizdun is in the background of the second gord the rogue novel by Gary gygax, where Gord is looking for one of the 3 parts of an artiffact that could free Tharizdun.( I read the novel a while back, so please correct me if I am wrong)
Yep, you're remembering correctly. Artifact of Evil is the title.
Can you do a video on the shadow weave and what happened to it? Is there a possible future for it to be reinstated?
Wow... great stuff.
In a limitless plane,how does one find the "bottom"; if you don't know where you're going, any road will lead you there...
In some editions the Abyss has supposedly 666 layers, with the 665th a unlimited black void. Perhaps the 666th is where he is imprisoned.
If Tharizdun is so powerfull, why can't he scape his prison?
Jorphdan: He has ADHD and keeps postponing it
Is the word 'entropy' used that way in the text or is that just you Jorphdan who uses that word here so often? Since it seems to be used very wrong here in the video. Entropy is neither chaos, nor evil, and not even destructive, and yet it seems to be used as synonym for all those things multiple times here. Other than this the video was interesting.
Actually it is used in the text to describe Tharizdun. A quick look at Google and I believe WotC is going off this definition.
"lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder."
@@Jorphdan Thanks, I am not entirely surprised, D&D has a long history of using words which do not entirely mean what the authors think they mean.
Can Torog be next?
Have you ever thought of explaining the lore of Dark Sun?
Yep! Just haven't dived in yet
Beware the Cyclops.
tharizdun is just an eye
What's this i hear that pelor is a puppet of him?
No mention that he might also be Jubilex as well as a bunch other?
What if Jubilex is actually Tharizdun's prison... ?
@@Jorphdan I like where you're going.
I preferred the way the original WG4 module left it up to the DM and players on how to deal with THARIZDUN. This 4th edition stuff just sounds like bad Dragonball Z fanfic.
So E3 is really a cult to Tharizdun? not the Elder Elemental Eye?
Same God different hat I believe.
This is my big bad in my current campaign, started with Princes of the Apocalypse
Me too!
I'm currently running princes of the apocalypse for my players. Ever since I learned more about Tharizdun and The elder elemental eye my hope is to have the campaign stretch to lvl 20 for them to have an encounter with Tharizdun.
Is that an IPRE logo in the background?
I see no reason why gods can't be warlock patrons, they just choose not to because they have better options available. Face it, a god has more control over a cleric than over a warlock.
Lol I see what you did New Jersey lol
Looks like Xur
Tharizdun > Orcus and Demigorgon
The chained god has adhd
7:42 wait, so Tharizdun has ADHD? Or is ADHD because of Thatizdun?
Tharizdun the neurodivergent
I am from Indonesia and i dont understand
this video contradict a lot of lore i know
You say these names wrong to troll me, sigh
First!
Unpopular opinion: can we get less screentime of you (like not at all), it breaks immersion for me, one second watching the epic picture of an old God, the next looking at a dude speaking ... or at least, like decrease the size (like in twitch?) else, I love your videos.
Really wanted to watch this, but since you can't even pronounce the name correctly (the emphasis is on the middle syllable per Frank Mentzer Dragon 93) I am going to pass.
By Felicia
Wait, I am confused. I am taking notes for a game I am running. If this Black Cyst was underneath the ancient temple, how is it floating in mid air? Are the pictures just misleading, or am I misunderstanding? Great Video though!
There were no pictures, but I think after they unearthed it it was hovering in midair. Either that or they tunneled into a cavern where the black cyst lay
"The worst place in the multi-verse, The Abyss *shows picture of New Jersey*" I mean.....you're not wrong...
Live here, very true.
I also live in the Peoples Republic of New Jersey and I also can confirm this is true.
Come on it’s not THAT bad...we did just get legal weed.
@@josephfernandez8015 like the abyss, it depends on how close you are to tharizdun's pad (paterson) I guess, I'm across the bridge from it, it's not so bad, though every once in a whole you might be listening to gunshots instead of the popping of the engine of a drag racing car or fireworks, but you'll never know unless you watch the news the next morning... we have decent food even if everyone likes to shit on us for making disco fries and claiming poutine is superior and we stole it (first off no we didn't, poutine uses curds, we use straight up cheese, I'm not saying it isn't better though, it's just... I like my discount poutine sometimes, it wasn't mean to be frou frou food to begin with, it's comfy -comfort food-, let it be comfy dammit) and we also have some nice pockets of scenery like some appalachian mountains and some historic residences, I've got three historic landmarks right in my town not even an hour's walk away from my house, on's like seven blocks away, even if a lot of it is NY's dumpster. So yes, we are the abyss, but some of mount celestia peeks through anyway...
You guys should visit China
I like to think that Tharizdun realized how awful the Obereths really were which is why he tried to control them and failing that his madness has led him to believe that the only option left is to destroy the whole universe. He's trying to be a good guy, but...you know...crazy logic.
Tharizdun must be the D&D inspiration for Sargeras in World of Warcraft - a god that seeks to save the Universe/Multiverse from it's own failings - by destroying it.
I wonder what Thanos was based off.
@@WhatWillYouFind Ra's al Ghul. He literally has Ra's al Ghul's motivation that he's had since the 70's, the Marvel studios people just didn't want to use Thanos' comic book motivation: simpery over Death, and chose instead to just transplant Ra's's personality and motivation but make it universal instead of limited to just Earth.
Even if he is a god, he can't escape from his prolate spheroid. That's where the warlock patron angle comes in. XD
Just wanted to add - Tharizdun is also a part of the Points of Light(the default 4e setting) campaign setting
We don't talk about fourth, Morty...
@@tehfiredog Points of Light is a great campaign setting... It doesn't have to be mechanically attached to 4e
All right some Greyhawk.
Read Gygax's Gord the Rogue series of books ; it's HUGE! Tharizdun is MUCH more powerful, & it's a perfect level 1 to EPIC campaign!
I LOVE Tharizdun. He's so interesting and mysterious. Great vid
Thank you so much for this lore dump! I had no idea POTA was standing on the shoulders of older published works. If that 1e conversion is released please do link it.
Of course he ended up in the Forgotten Realms. Everything does. *sigh*
Oh well, at least if Wizards continues to ignore the actual good campaign settings they own then they can't do any more damage to their lore, and it's not like Forgotten Realms can become any more of a mess.
I have noticed that The Realms have become the Sakaar of 5th Ed.
This dude lives in eastern PA, I can feel it.
Perfect. My high-level players just became aware of some far realm entities are working towards the release of Tharizdun in my campaign to facilitate the destruction of the player character's home sphere. You just provided a fantastic starting point for me if they choose to look into this hook.
Tharizdun, the Uzumaki (spiral) a god with a Junji Ito mind.
So how do the Gord of Greyhawk books factor in to this?
In those books Gord eventually frees Tharizdun so that he can destroy him, but fails and Oerth and Greyspace fall to the demons. In the process Gord is killed but is resurrected in another prime plane. Greyspace is sealed off with Tharizdun and the Lord of Entropy inside, with the intention that they will be destroyed when Greyspace collapses at the end of time.
Great timing! Tharizdun is one of the plot threads in campaign that I'm running and so far most of my research has been from Greyhawk Online. And now one of my players has finally gotten his character's backstory to me after a year and a half and it involves the archfey the Queen of Air and Darkness, who I read in one source was corrupted by Tharizdun. Would you be able to do a lore video on the Queen of Air and Darkness at some point?
This is my warlock players patron
If Tolkien earned a penny everytime someone copied from him he would be richier than Bezos and Tesla combined. Cant belive how many times his gods, ideas, monster and creatures have been adapted to other franchises.
Was planning on using Tharizdun as my BBEG in my Wildemount campaign. Happy I’ve gotten all this context to flesh the villain and who he’d reach out to in order to gain his power!
What if all the obelisks in 5e adventures were connected to Tharzidun and his prison?
What if the obelisks entraps all the murder hobos and horny bards from everyones campaign?
@@SlothinAintEasy yes
@@SlothinAintEasy No. there’s not enough space in the Forgotten Realms for that many Obelisks’
I thought the voidharrow was the dead universe the original shard of pure evil originally came from?
Apparently Tharizdun also was the one to cause that universe's destruction in some weird time paradox thing
Nice I was literally just going back to the early uploads last night
There may be some missing lore: in 4e, during the Essentials Revival attempt, they released “Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale”, which included creatures created by the Voidharrow through an Abyssal Plague. It was then used as a worlds-spanning event that impacted the core setting, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, and potentially others. It spawned six novels, a D&D Encounters campaign, and I believe two articles in Dragon Magazine from that time.
I loved the abyssal plagues story line, and would love to see it formally reintroduced to 5e. I’m actually running a campaign involving the Voidharrow and the Abyssal Plague in my home brew setting.