Pale Night

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Pale Night, the so-called "Mother of Demons," is an Abyssal Lord, both enigmatic and unbelievably ancient. In Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, it was revealed that she is a member of the demonic race called the obyriths.

Creative origins

Pale Night's character (also named old Night) is based on John Milton's Paradise Lost's second book; In this text, she is said to sit besides the Throne of Chaos.

Publication history

Pale Night was first mentioned in Faces of Evil: The Fiends (1997).^[1]

Pale Night appeared in third edition in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss (2006).^[2]

Description

Pale Night's form is incorporeal, and she appears as an empty flowing white shroud with the suggestion of a shapely female body underneath. It is said that Pale Night's true form, as befits an obyrith, is so hideous and terrifying that reality itself rejects it. The shroud that she "wears" hides it. To glimpse Pale Night's true form risks madness and death.

Relationships

Ancient texts claim that Pale Night is the mother of Graz'zt, Lupercio, Zivorgian, and Vucarik in Chains. If she is indeed the mother of Graz'zt, she would also be the grandmother of Iuz, and possibly the mother of Rhyxali. Other texts make the bold claim that the entire tanar'ri race is descended from her in some way. As written in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, she speaks only very rarely and has not confirmed any of this. The same source quotes that she seems to have a mutual defense alliance with Baphomet.

Realm

Pale Night lives in a bone castle which sits on a vast plateau in the Endless Maze of Baphomet, on the 600th layer of the Abyss. She has a strong alliance with Baphomet, the Prince of Beasts, and has lived on his layer since long before he became a demon lord. They do not work together, but each will defend the other's home from assault. Pale Night's castle looks like a giant grasping hand and is guarded by ambulatory bones and appendages. She rarely leaves this castle. It is said that those who stumble into her domain become new guardians for it.

Pale Night also rules the 471st layer of the Abyss, called Androlynne. Long ago, by guile and trickery, she manipulated the sense of concern the eladrin prince Ascodel, consort of Queen Morwel, felt for his race's young to convince him to agree to a terrible pact. The pact trapped a whole generation of eladrin children on her layer, allowing Pale Night's forces to hunt them down one by one at her leisure. Since then, the layer has become a battlefield between the forces of the demoness and the celestials that have come to protect the young eladrins.

Worshippers

Worshippers of Pale Night are rare; most of them are malevolent spellcasters obsessed with creating new breeds of half-fiends to unleash on the world.

References

Additional reading

• Baur, Wolfgang, and Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel. Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (Wizards of the Coast, 2007).
• Jacobs, James. "The Demonimicon of Iggwilv: Baphomet." Dragon #341 (Paizo Publishing, 2006).
• -----. "Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Graz'zt." Dragon #360. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2007. Available online.