Malcanthet

Malcanthet

Malcanthet, Queen of Succubi
Malcanthet, Queen of Succubi, as portrayed on the cover of Dragon #353 Art by Wayne Reynolds
Game background
Title(s)	Queen of Succubi
Home plane	507th layer of the Abyss - Shendilavri
Power level	Demon Lord
Alignment	Chaotic Evil
Portfolio	Seduction, Temptation, Sexuality, Eroticism
Domains	Chaos, Evil, Temptation, Trickery
Superior	None
Design details
First appearance	Maure Castle - Dungeon #112
Mythological	Succubus

For other uses of the word Succubus, see Succubus (disambiguation).

Malcanthet is a Demon Lord and is also known as the Queen of Succubi in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. She is described as being among the first of the Succubi to come into existence in the Abyss. She is ruthless, having battled numerous other demons, lords, and Succubi in untold numbers of wars to hold her current title. Physically she is an incredibly beautiful human-like female with bat-wings, horns, and a long prehensile tail tipped with a spike-like stinger.

Character Information

Relationships

Malcanthet is the current holder of the title of Queen of Succubi. Other demon lords aspiring to the position include Lady Lynkhab, the currently imprisoned Shami-Amourae, and the exiled Xinivrae. Other rivals exist elsewhere in the Abyss, but they ultimately pose little or no threat to Malcanthet.

Malcanthet was among the first of the succubi to come into being in the Abyss. She obtained her current title after years of waging wars and committing savage betrayals upon her fellow "sister" succubi and former paramours. As a result of her ruthless climb to the top, she has cultivated a long list of enemies, which includes Graz'zt, Yeenoghu, and Baphomet. Her few allies include the Prince of Demons Demogorgon, with whom she birthed the monstrous Arendagrost; Pazuzu, from whom she mothered the succubus Red Shroud; her current consort Mastiphal the Hunting Sovereign; and Socothbenoth, a demon lord concerned with sexual taboos and perversions.

Realm

The Succubus Queen's realm is the 507th layer of the Abyss, and is known as Shendilavri. Once a disgusting layer of heaving and "shuddering flesh", Malcanthet has transformed it into a verdant paradise. But ultimately, it is a paradise for Malcanthet herself only.

Cult of Malcanthet

The cult of the Succubus Queen is a widespread but disorganized lot. Each cult sees another not as an ally but as competition, and most are little more than simple brothels. Most of Malcanthet's followers are female; those few male cultists are viewed either as lowly servants or convenient muscle power. The Thralls of Malcanthet are exclusively female, and as they rise in power, they gain more and more powers similar to those of succubi until they too, can (temporarily) assume succubi forms.

Servants

The Radiant Sisters - Thirteen lilitu bards who serve under their mistress. Their names are actually the colors they radiate, and each one has a soul-draining locket and a shining halo.

In Universe Appearances and Information

The following describes Malcanthet's official appearances in the Dungeons and Dragons universe:

Maure Castle

Maure Castle was an adventure module for Dungeons and Dragons that appeared in Dungeon Magazine Issue 112, written by Robert J. Kuntz and Gary Gygax. This adventure marked Malcanthet's first mention in D&D lore.

During this adventure, player characters encounter a statue which is described as a remnant of the Cult of Malcanthet that once dwelt in the area players are searching in. The statue is said to have been once a direct portal to Malcanthet, and her cultists offered their desires and adoration to her through the statue. The statue still has some powers of mind control and influence within it. Depending on the effects of the statue on players, several events can occur, the most likely is that whichever being is enthralled by the statue, they will eventually be killed by it and their soul absorbed by Malcanthet.

Alternative Character Histories

The following are possible alternative character histories and information which can be used in place of the official Dungeons and Dragons lore for Malcanthet:

Nothlands Universe

Description

Malcanthet is relatively young, as far as demon lords are concerned. The Queen of the Succubi has only come to power in the past few thousand years, after centuries of scheming and warring with her like-minded kin. She is a demon of pleasure and self-satisfaction, and constantly seeks new ways to please herself while relaxing (and scheming) from her palace in Shendilavri. Her title is currently uncontested, but she is known to constantly be working to keep all that would oppose her in their place.

Malcanthet appears as a woman of about human-size, and is marked by her beauty and sexual appeal. However, clear signs of the doom that awaits those who seek her company are manifested in a pair of horns that jut from her brow, as well as large, bat-like wings sprouting from her back and a tail ending in a curved spike. She is most often seen wearing tight, form-fitting robes or nothing at all.

History

Malcanthet is young compared to other demon lords, having only in the past few thousand years entered the playing field. She was born as a product of pure, unrelenting lust and grew in power as the sin of lust grew across the Material Plane. She emerged at a time when many rivals would lay claim to her throne: Shami-Amourae, Lynkhab, and Xinivrae were all potential competitors, but Malcanthet managed to defeat each of them one at a time, either through scheming (as she did with Shami-Amourae) or direct combat (as she did with Xinivrae).

Malcanthet's recent history consists mostly of her attempts to manipulate and seduce other demon lords, particularly Pazuzu and Demogorgon. She has become almost exclusively the Prince of Demon's consort by this point, granting her a firm position within the Abyss. However, some suspect that the Queen of the Succubi is not as loyal to Demogorgon as she appears.

Agenda

Malcanthet's primary goal is and always has been self-satisfaction, and she is constantly working to develop new forms of physical pleasure, and she draws on souls and demons from all over the Abyss to achieve this goal. However, she is aware of her vulnerable position in the Abyss, and constantly schemes to ensure her title as Queen of the Succubi. Her primary competition for the title has mostly disappeared, however: Shami-Amourae, a succubus associated with depraved sexuality, was imprisoned ages ago by Malcanthet and Demogorgon, Xinivrae, a succubus known to seduce women, has been badly wounded and imprisoned within the Dreaming Gulf, and Lynkhab (the patron of self-destructive behavior) has become weak and impotent. Without these enemies, Malcanthet feels quite confident about her abilities to hold on to the title of Queen of the Succubi.

Yet Malcanthet is not without other enemies. Chief among them is the Dark Prince, Graz'zt. Each of the demon lords claims to have spurned the others advances, and the two are constantly scheming to ensure the others destruction. Yet the two are not overtly hostile, as both seem to prefer sending spies and saboteurs to interrupt the others plots.

Malcanthet's alliances with other demon lords seem to be primarily concerned with one thing: fulfilling the Queen's unending lust. Her lovers are many, including Pazuzu (with whom she has sired many powerful succubi, including the enigmatic Red Shroud, but also the terrible Shax) and Socothbenoth (a minor demon lord associated with incest and other sexual taboos). Yet Malcanthet's greatest conquest is without a doubt Demogorgon, with whom she has sired many beings too horrifying to imagine, including the dreaded Arendagrost. With the Prince of Demons' aid, Malcanthet has likely secured her position within the Abyss, so long as Demogorgon's moods do not sway too radically.

Followers

Malcanthet draws her mortal followers from those who seek pleasure more than anything else. Her followers are wicked hedonists, often tempted into following Malcanthet by a succubus or incubus. She has a widespread cult, but these cults rarely, if ever, work together. Her cults often appear as nothing more than brothels to the untrained eye, but they are secretly much more fiendish: victims are often lured inside with promises of sex, only to become the newest sacrifice to the Queen. Thaumaturges of Malcanthet range from simple pleasure seekers, seeking to gain an advantage when courting their preferred sex, to power-hungry politicians who wish to use Malcanthet's mastery of charm and manipulation to drive their political success. Many thaumaturges and followers of Malcanthet fail to realize the horrors that await them once their soul has been forever claimed; most are mislead to believe the afterlife will be a sexual paradise.

During their obedience ritual, a thaumaturge of Malcanthet must achieve sexual release, either alone or with a partner. More powerful thaumaturges of Malcanthet are required to show their obedience by either performing a circumcision on themselves or applying a genital piercing to themselves.

Malcanthet at the Dungeons and Dragons Wiki

“	Although the most beautiful nude woman you can imagine stands before you, twirling her red hair and looking at you with her red eyes full of passion, your gaze is strangely drawn to the amulet she wears around her neck. Even the bare breasts just beneath it do not distract you from gazing at its beautiful deep red colour, its silver setting and its beautiful chain. Once you tear yourself away from gazing at it, you see that she is indeed perfectly formed to seduce, and your blood runs just thinking about her. You hardly notice her slight horns and her six batlike wings unfurled behind her back. As her red eyes gaze at you, you forget everything but the thought of her wrapped around you.	”

Character History

Like Abaddon, Malcanthet was also once an angel, but unlike Abaddon, her fall from grace was quite different - perhaps as different as it is possible to get. However, one thing they have in common is that it was the circumstances of the Time of Mercy that led to their falls, and that were it not for the policy of interference, she may have never ended up the way she was.

To understand the nature of her fall, it is important to know that angels do not conceive of the idea of sex for pleasure, or as a form of control or corruption. While they understand the importance of sexual reproduction for the purposes of strengthening and continuation of a species, and see the enjoyment of the act of sexual intercourse as an important part of this, it is at this point that their curiosity stops - they simply see no need to extend this notion further. This is not to say that they do not conceive of the idea of rape, for example - however, they view it in the broader scheme of a violent or hateful act, rather than as something related to sex specifically. Thus, during the Time of Mercy, it seemed only natural to them to appoint an angel to oversee the procreation of the humanoid races, and to protect them from all of the pitfalls that this could have. They appointed an planetar, named Astara, this task.

Little could they have known that Astara would learn far, far more from this than they ever expected.

At first, Astara took to her duties with zeal and dedication, seeking to ensure that the humanoid races reproduce in a way that was healthy and non-destructive, while avoiding violence or oppression of others. However, as she witnessed more and more sexual pairings, she began to realise that there was much more to all of this than simple procreation. She witnessed sex purely for pleasure, prostitution and other such things, and was at first bemused. An angel herself, she could simply not make sense of these occurrences. She also saw the consequences of sexual reproduction on an emotional level: the pain of loss, the manipulation of others with sex, the madness that it could drive others to, and once again, felt she simply had no understanding of what it meant. She wished desperately to protect her charges, all those who engaged in such practices, or, indeed, were harmed by them, but felt that until she could understand the problem, she couldn't do much about it.

At the same time, Pale Night was watching. She saw Astara's confusion, and felt that the situation could be one she could profit from. Although the Material Plane had been cleansed of much of the Abyssal energy that had once created it, during these early times, Pale Night still had some power over it. She used this power to create a love-venom so powerful that it could even infect an angel, and planted this venom into the body of a young man, whose name was Adam. It was then merely a matter of time before the already-curious Astara came upon this bizarre man, whom women lusted after in a way that could only be described as unnatural.

And sure enough, it happened. It wasn't too long before the High Angelic Council dispatched Astara with an urgent order to investigate this strange occurrence, and to take all necessary measures to prevent it. Astara departed for the location, little-knowing what awaited her there.

She found Adam in mid-orgy, surrounded by nude or near-nude women, and the light in his eyes and vigour in his muscles shone with the power of the Abyss. Horrified by what she saw, Astara tried to summon her power to destroy the energy, but as she was about to unleash the full extent of her power, Adam looked up at her. His red eyes met hers, and she froze, the gathered energies dissipating around her. He then spoke but three words that set Astara's blood ablaze and awoke desires in her that no angel before had experienced.

"Come to me."

What followed was a lovemaking unlike anything that the Material Plane had ever seen. The two spent six days in almost constant, uninterrupted sex, Astara fuelled by her angelic essence and Adam by the Abyssal love-venom that coursed through his veins. Astara experienced every form of sex that their imaginations could conceive of, and finally began to understand exactly why all of the things that mortals did for sex, and around sex, made sense. She understood the joy that it could bring, the ideas of completeness that it involved, and most importantly, why mortals sought it so much and to such an extent. As the sixth day drew to a close, she felt she had enough understanding, and was almost ready to depart, but it was only then that she realised that Adam, being just a mere man, could not have managed this on his own. The love-venom had given him enormous stamina and energy, but at the cost of his soul's energy. Although Astara tried how she could to extend his life, she found herself unable to do much more than delay the inevitable. Just before he died, he spoke one simple phrase to Astara:

"Thank you. I can now die happy."'

As his body collapsed under all of the strain it had been put under, the love-venom departed it in the form of a snake, which quickly fled the scene. It was only then that Astara became aware of the angels that had been watching the entire proceedings in horror, and just how much of her duties she had neglected.

The angels began to question Astara as to what had just happened, and why she did what she did. The more they asked, the less Astara understood why she took the actions she just had. The angels' questions became more and more insistent, and the more insistent they grew, the less Astara could answer them. Eventually, their discussion became a debate, and eventually it had devolved into an argument. Astara became increasingly more insistent that she had done the right thing, and when the matter almost came to violence, they decided that the High Angelic Council should be the ones to deal with this matter.

If Astara had been confused before, she became even more confused now, as all of the feelings of loss, anger and other emotions she had simply not known as an angel flooded through her. She blamed herself for what had happened, for her loss of control and inability to perform her duties, but also felt anger at this man and what he had made her do, and towards her inability to save him. In amidst all this, Astara failed to realise that Adam had impregnated her, combining her angelic essence with his own, mortal one, and filled with the love-venom that Pale Night had created. Having taken the life of Adam, the venom took on an intellect of its own, and was ready to begin the true ruin of Astara via the life growing inside her.

Although she had been thoroughly debriefed, none suspected that Astara was any worse for wear. Her mental fortitude had seen her through everything that had transpired, and the High Council, ever-forgiving, decided that she should resume her duties - even claiming that this experience with a mortal, although bizarre and inexplicable, would prove a useful piece of learning in her future work as a protector of humanoid races. Astara, although still feeling confused and strange at everything that had happened, agreed to this, and returned to her duties. However, she now saw things very differently, coloured by her experience and by the new life in her body - one which was both vulnerable, as mortals were, and tainted by Abyssal energy.

As she went about her duties, her experience of sex, and then loss, made her see each instance of her duties in a whole new light. Whereas before, she had seen sex as a purely biological function, requires for the continuation and strengthening of any humanoid race, she now became aware that it also revealed the greatest truths about humanoids and their reality. She also saw for the first time with how little instruction or guidance (or, in her opinion, good guidance) many undertook this step. At the same time, she also saw the importance of the unity of opposites that it represented, for it was the very key to creation - and new life. As she gazed upon that, she felt her loss and sadness all over again, and the new life within her, ever-watching, began to whisper in her mind, in a voice so familiar she thought that those thoughts were her own.

The voices told her to calm the loss by spreading her understanding and her sexuality among the mortals she was to protect. It was for their own good, they said: after all, you know far more than they, as an eternal and wise being, and surely it would be best if you taught them the true power of all of this? Astara relented after a long struggle, and discovered that more sex calmed her loss - but only for a moment. This, the voices insisted, was simply because she couldn't give herself to the experience as she had with Adam - but next time, it'll all be better. The more she followed the voice in her head, the less she resisted it, and eventually, other suggestions began to creep in. Surely too, mortals should know loss like she had - how else would they be prepared for it? And while we're on the subject, surely you should demonstrate the true power of sex to them - its capacity to ruin and lead others to madness? Are you not a greater being, a protector; is it not your task to guide humanoid life through this, and they ought to be thankful?

As she took these actions more and more readily, and more and more willingly, she began to be called by another name - Malcanthet. Uttered often as a curse toward her, it was a name she initially despised, but eventually grew to love. However, no matter how much she followed the advice of the voice, first reluctantly, then willingly, she could not find a way to stop the feeling of loss and pain forever - only for a time. Eventually, this made Astara believe that in truth, the original feeling of unity was simply an illusion, and that all sought that illusion. It was a lie, a sham - and who better than her to reveal it, through the most direct means possible?

Her true fall, however, occurred only later, when her actions and their consequences began to filter back to the High Angelic Council. The reports were slow at first, but then became more and more urgent and voluminous. Not suspecting her a unique case, the High Angelic Council felt it was their duty to protect humanoids from the angels - and vice versa - and thus issued the Edict of Observation. They also sent a notice of official censure to Astara, telling her to stop in her activities and return directly to the High Angelic Council, without going to the Place of Gathering.

Once this news reached her, Astara became afraid, for she realised that something was not going right with her, even if she couldn't guess what. It was then that the life within her made its presence known. Its voice, and Pale Night's voice, spoke in Astara's mind, revealing to her the truth of her actions. Malcanthet came to realise that in fact, her actions and current thoughts fitted the Abyss' pattern perfectly, and that ruin and chaos were to the benefit of the Material Plane. However, the imminent danger of censure and punishment would mean that her work would no longer be done - and with the Edict of Observation about to come into effect, none else could do it for her. Pale Night had a solution for this too - she could continue her work as an agent of the Abyss, but she had to hide her angelic essence so that the High Council couldn't find her. Following the instructions of Pale Night, Astara foreswore her angelic nature, and bound it into a gemstone. She then melted down the weapon that served her as a planetar, turning it into a setting and a chain, which allowed her to wear her essence around her neck. She abandoned her name, so that the High Angelic Council couldn't trace her through it. What remained of her joined with the being growing inside her to become her new, current form - Malcanthet, Worlds' Ruin.

Malcanthet's Worshippers

Malcanthet has a relatively broad base of worship, as many seek the gifts of her sexual abilities and the way it can control others. Cults to her tend to be quite secretive, however, as they risk exposure on more fronts than most. Her clerics tend to be women, but the vast majority of ordinary cultists are instead men. They seek to use sex and its power to ruin and destroy as much as possible - relationships, friendships, cities, nations... even worlds if possible. Always seeking to be the power behind the throne, such cults are hard to locate, and even harder to root out, as they draw upon the most fundamental of passions.

In the Abyss, Malcanthet's most numerous servants are succubi, whose patron (if not outright creator) she is considered to be. A large number of the monstrous Nalfeshnees also serve her.

Creative Origins

Compared to other demon lords like Demogorgon, Lolth, Orcus, Zuggtmoy, and Graz'zt, Malcanthet is a relative newcomer to the game. She was first mentioned in the Maure Castle adventure in Dungeon #112, and in another adventure in Dungeon #124, and later in Baphomet's entry in the "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" series in Dragon.

Malcanthet was then fully detailed in the hardcover guide Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss (2006), and her own entry in the "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" series in Dragon #353.

External Links

• Malcanthet at Wikipedia
• Malcanthet at the Forgotten Realms Wikia
• Malcanthet at the D&D Wiki
• Malcanthet at the Nothlands Wiki