Thursday, July 11, 2019

Ecology of the abyssal larva

Larvae are fiendish petitioners in the D&D cosmology. Their exact ecology has varied in different editions. They are known by many names: abyssal larva, demonic larva, soul larva, soul maggot, soul worm, etc.

Official publications

In the typical D&D tradition, the souls of the dead travel to the outer planes and become "petitioners." The appearance and general traits of a petitioner are determined by the plane they enter. Those who arise in the Abyss appear in the form of "least" demons called "manes" and "rutterkin." Those who arise in Hell may appear in one of several forms: tortured shells of their mortal selves, or "least" devils called "lemures" and "nupperibos."

Petitioners who arise in Hades or the Shadowfell appear as ghostly shades of their mortal selves, but the vilest of Hadean petitioners become giant grubs, maggots or worms that retain their mortal face. These petitioners are called "soul larvae" or "larvae" for short. Night hags maintained a monopoly on herding them.

Petitioners, particularly larvae, had various uses: they could be transformed into demons or devils (or other petitioners, or undead), consumed as snacks (liches consumed these souls to power their immortality), spell components, building materials, etc. The exact process of promotion/demotion is complicated and varies by edition, and the exact distinction between petitioners and least demons and devils is vague.

According to obscure Planescape lore, the yugoloths were the first race of fiends and used the "heart of darkness" to expel chaos and law from themselves into the larvae. These larvae were herded into the Abyss and Hell, where they became the modern demons and devils. These planes were previously inhabited only by the "baatorians" and "obyrinth," respectively, who were displaced by the intrusion (depending on the edition, though there are valiant attempts to reconcile the stories).

Prior to third edition, larvae seemingly formed the basis of the population of the lower planes. Lemures, manes and so forth didn't arise spontaneously from their associated planes. They spontaneously metamorphosed or had be deliberately promoted from larvae already on that plane. Since larvae only formed on Hades, this meant they had to be imported. (The sources aren't consistent about this so I can't be sure whether I'm interpreting this correctly.) As of third edition and beyond, it no longer seems possible to promote larvae into imps, lemures, manes and so forth.

Etymology

The names of the larvae, lemures and manes derive from Roman mythology. In Roman belief, contrasting the goodly lares and the indeterminate manes, the larvae were the souls of the restless dead. They could not rest due to guilty or indignity, like violent death. They wandered the world as ghosts that terrified and demented the living. Their nocturnal counterparts were the lemures.

The name of the nupperibo derives from Japanese. In Japanese folklore, the nopperabō is a faceless ghost.

Third party publications

Larvae reappeared in 3pp and OSR, although their ecology usually changed.

Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie introduced the "elder larva." This monster was the result of larvae escaping the lower planes during the Titanomachy and growing to monstrous proportions.

Mongoose Publishing's The Book of Hell would take the concept of larvae in a different direction. Rather than common inhabitants of the lower planes, these larvae only appeared during a highly guarded ritual of promotion. The supplement posited that damned souls, demons and devils alike were promoted into higher forms through vicious competition: the subjects would be transformed into giant eggs, these eggs would hatch into larvae, and the larvae would cannibalize each other to fuel their maturation into higher ranks. Those who survived but failed to consume sufficient demonic essence would mature into demoted forms, such as dretches and lemures.

Mongoose Publishing produced additional books on demons, including The Slayer's Guide to Demons and Encyclopaedia Arcane: Demonology, but their many ideas reached their apotheosis in their campaign setting Infernum. In this setting, larvae were spawned from spawning pits. Larvae would be bred to mature into different breeds of demons, such as imps or hulks. Damned souls could be promoted to demons as well by sorcery rituals. The life cycle was closed when demons would be tossed into the pits, where they would dissolve alive and their organs would metamorphose into new larvae. Compared with traditional D&D, Infernum, Volume I: Book of the Damned went into a lot more detail about how the damned could be tortured/farmed and used as building material.

The Tome of Horrors introduced the "abyssal larva." Unlike the Hadean larvae, these larvae were native to the Abyss. They were petitioners too weak to become demons or servants thereof. They were rumored to include the imprisoned forms of deposed demon lords. This entry would be replicated by retroclones under the OGL.

Pathfinder would take cues from Tome of Horrors when it detailed its version of petitioners. Hellish and Hadean petitioners resembled their mortal forms, known respectively as "damned" and "hunted," but Abyssal petitioners were larvae. How petitioners became demons wasn't consistent between different sources. According to the first Bestiary a single "soul" could produce dozens or hundreds of demons based on its sins in life. Other passages described souls becoming larvae becoming demons on a one-to-one basis, or skipping the larval step entirely.

OSRIC featured larvae, lemures, manes and rutterkin identical to the D&D tradition. For what I can only assume are legal reasons, it referred to the larva as "soul worm," manes as "kullule" and "demonic hordling," and rutterkin as "shub."

In Swords & Wizardry, the list of demons includes abyssal larva, larvaxu, lemure, manes and nupperibo. No distinction is made between demons and devils. Other than the larvaxu and manes, these were derived from the d20 SRD v3.5 and Tome of Horrors. The larvaxu is a massive grub-like Type II demon that swallows victims whole and digests them into "demonic larva" (probably referencing the abyssal larva entry).

New Big Dragon's OSR supplements posit an "abyssal vermin" family that includes the abyssal larva and the newly introduced "abyssal locust." The abyssal larvae are bred by higher demons as imps, quasits, or more particular races. Those larvae left alone mature naturally into abyssal locusts.

Other petitioners

In addition to the many forms of the larva, the other petitioners of the lower planes have similarly gone through changes across editions.

Petitioners of Hell

The petitioners of Hell include damned, the least devils lemures and nupperibo. They appear in both D&D and derivatives like Pathfinder.

Damned resemble tortured shells of their mortal selves. They may be used as building material a la Wayne Barlowe's Inferno, or processed into least devils like imps, lemures and nupperibo.

Lemures arose spontaneously from particularly vile souls and are considered the most immediately useful by devils. They may be promoted from damned souls, larvae and nupperibo. (The relative ranking of lemures and nupperibo varies by edition.)

Nupperibo arose through several ways. Larvae that were left alone in Hell would spontaneously metamorphose into nupperibo. Souls that weren't evil enough to become lemures immediately would become nupperibo. Devils could always be demoted to nupperibo. According to Tome of Horrors (and adopted by Pathfinder), damned souls that were processed to become lemures but failed became nupperibo instead.

Nupperibo cannot advance to higher ranks of devil without first demoting to lemures. (According to some sources, this was a three step process of nupperibo → larva → lemure.) Nupperibo may advance to higher ranks of baatorian, the primordial inhabitants of Hell prior to the dominion of the devils.

Petitioners of the Abyss

The petitioners of the Abyss include the least demons manes and rutterkin.

Souls that aren't simply absorbed by the Abyss become manes. Manes resemble zombies with demonic features and maggots crawling under their skin.

Rutterkin are horribly twisted and mutated demons that, as of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (5e), carry a "warping plague" that transforms victims into "abyssal wretches" a la the chaos beasts. Their origins vary dramatically by edition: they are outcast demons mutated by unknown means, created from the souls of the incompetent, descendants human travelers who became trapped in the Abyss, the spontaneously transmuted souls of bullies, amalgams of multiple manes, or otherwise created from other creatures.

Research links

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