Haknian

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Rip Lord, Vectorine of the Hungry Tide
Planar Powers: Bel | Dispater | Mammon | Fierna/Belial | Levistus | Glasya | Baalzebul | Mephistopheles | Asmodeus | Pazuzu | Orcus | Graz'zt | Baphomet | Demogorgon | Dagon | Abyssal (magic) | Abyssal (war) | Abyssal (trickery) | Ravanna | Malkizid | Zuggtmoy | Juiblex | Paush | Eltab | Pale Night | Obox-ob | Abraxas | Kostchtchie | Tymphal | Crozhen | Haknian | The Sequence | Pisaethces | mother | Kezef | The Endless Frost | Dendar | Cackles | Atropus | Tharizdun | Mak Thuum Ngatha | Yeenoghu | The Drowning Man

Aliases:
Gender:  ???
Demonym:
Power Level: Planar Power
Symbol: Three curved lines sweeping outwards, the ends forming an inverted equilateral triangle
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Portfolio: Rip currents, whirlpools, rogue waves
Worshipers: Sailors, evil sea creatures, mathematicians
Domains:
Arelith worshippers' alignments[1]: LE, NE, CE
Aspects: War and Destruction, Magic


The entity known as the Rip Lord is an inscrutable interloper in the oceans of Stygia. Haknian concerns Itself most with the dynamics and patterns of the deep ocean and the deadly confluences that arise from them. Its physical body is amphisbaenic, an eel the size of an island. The 'front' of It is an eyeless mouth of five closed jaws, which rarely unfurl to reveal a serene, humanoid face seven meters tall, like where the 'beak' of a cephalopod ought to be.

Haknian delights in the thalassic event horizon: that instant of no return when a swimmer or a ship can no longer escape death at sea; It folds torrent and tide with calculated, minimal exactitude to bring those moments closer. Disaster as the precise sum of conjoining forces. To superstitious mariners, Haknian's name is just one of many to invoke, and most simply consider It another evil spirit to be appeased or warded off.

It retains levies comprised only of devils or creatures which live and move natively in the water. Shoals of sarglagons swirl about Its immensity. Occasionally, tribes of anguiliians are swept from mortal oceans into Its presence, where beds of them swarm of anoetic hyper-awareness before emerging back into their native waters, dazed and hypnotized.

Although It dwells in Stygia, It is not a Baatezu, nor is It a god. The devils, unable to subjugate, tithe, or ally with it, waged a few petty wars against Haknian to stalemate in past ages, but It never seemed to take much notice of them. The local fiends, at something of a loss, ultimately resorted to bureaucracy: unable to conquer or treat with Haknian, eventually just gave the entity Ducal standing in the Stygian Court (which It ignores), and the Felggarni Medal of Valor (second-class) for Its resolve in the wars against the devils (which It also ignores).

So far It has never formally received Its medal; the "honor" of (attempting to) deliver it to Haknian is a punishment detail assigned to fiends that have fallen out of favor with the Court, as is the "honor" of retrieving the medal after failure (and, of course, the remains of the last herald).

Its Ducal fiefdom, simply called Haknian's Wake, is the deep-sea gyre of killing currents and counter-currents which perpetually follow It. It enjoys cordial relations with Umberlee.

References

  1. On Arelith, the restriction for D&D clerics also applies to paladins and druids