Pandorym
| Pandorym | ||
|---|---|---|
| Aliases | The God-Slayer, The Utter Annihilation | |
| Alignment | Lawful Evil | |
| Pantheon | Elder Evils | |
| Portfolio | Psionics, god-slaying | |
| Domains | 3E: Destruction, Law, Evil, Vile Darkness, Liberation, Madness, Mind, Fury, Hatred 4E: Darkness, Freedom, Destruction, Madness, Vengeance 5E: War, Death |
|
| Home Plane | Unknown | |
| Worshippers | Star Spawn | |
Pandorym, the God-Slayer is an Elder Evil whose physical form resembles a huge Sphere of Annihilation, originating from "the space between the planes" (explicitly not the Far Realm, as it is a being of Law). The name is a reference to the Greek myth of Pandora's Box, if it wasn't obvious, and rightfully so - if its body and mind were ever reunited, it would proceed to destroy all the gods and thus end the universe.
It also indirectly gave us the epitome of Lawful Stupid, an Inevitable Kolyarut named Obligatum VII (7th in his line, since people had the common sense to stop the previous 6) which is/was trying to free the Elder Evil as recompence for being 'unfairly' trapped by some wizards' bad-faith contract, regardless of the deicide-allowing consequences. He's so much an exemplar of it that he's our mascot for the very concept. Expect any mention of him or his equally idiotic predecessors/successors to be met with rage.
How it became as it is now
Essentially, Pandorym was summoned to the D&D multiverse by a cabal of wizards hoping to blackmail the gods. They promptly formed a contract with it to have it destroy the universe. They then split Pandorym's mind from it body and sealed said mind into a nigh-indestructable crystal and cut it into shards (splitting said mind into pieces), and proceeded to thereaten its reunification in order to do said blackmail. This went as about as smoothly as you'd expect, with the gods immediately smiting them, leaving Pandorym split ever since.
And that's where this idiot comes in...
 Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it. |
Since Pandorym is somehow a being of Law, it managed to write down a compelling argument for why its imprisonment was unlawful (probably by possessing some Rules Lawyer) and sent it to Mechanus. Since the Inevitables that review these contracts are Lawful Neutral, they didn't give a shit about the consequences, only following the law to the letter, and thus created the Obligatum line of Kolyaruts to free the Elder Evil from its mind-body split. Why the Varakhuts, another Inevitable type that is meant to prevent deicide, didn't intervene has never been explained.
Naturally the gods were pissed, but since punishing Mechanus was also frowned upon, they instead sent their mortal followers to intercept the Obligatums every time the latest iteration was sent out. This succeeded 6 times, but for some reason the Inevitables said 'seventh time's the charm' and sent Obligatum VII. This is the Kolyarut that player adventurers are called on to intercept (alongside rescuing a man who got corrupted by Pandorym in the suggested campaign), and as such the one you're going to fight. It's a level 3 Hexblade (could be an Eldritch Knight in newer EDs) and level 5 Occult Slayer, carrying an adamantium sword it hopes to use to shatter the crystal preventing Pandorym's mind from reuniting with its body, as well as golden plate armor.
Fighting it
Since Pandorym becoming whole again would essentially result in an instant TPK (this thing can destroy all the gods, remember), adventures will never encounter the complete Elder Evil. They'll only encounter its Sphere of Annihilation-like body and its corrupting mind-shard separately.
Body of Pandorym
The Body of Pandorym is found in some extradimensional prison (probably a demiplane, though that's really up to the DM). You aren't as much going to 'fight' it as attempt to destroy it before you get bored or run out of ways to try to, since, well, it is described as a giant Sphere of Annihilation that'll eat all the damage or tricks you can throw at it. Controlling it isn't an option either, for those cheeky bastards who think they can use the Talisman of the Sphere to control it or just attempt to move it will find it'll just move closer to them instead. Destroying it might be possible by exploiting the fact that chucking a Bag of Holding or other extradimensional storage item into a Sphere has a chance to destroy both of them and temporarily open a rift to the Astral Plane, but what right-thinking Party would ever want to get rid of that extra carrying capacity, even if it's to save the multiverse?
Mind-Shard of Pandorym
A fragment of the mind of Pandorym is the thing you actually fight in a campaign featuring Pandorym. A CR 25 (3/3.5E) Huge Outsider (or Aberrations in newer EDs) that relies on psionic powers, the Mind Shard of Pandorym will mindrape your party if you're not prepared. The full Mind of Pandorym is not given stats as it is too powerful for the players to defeat, and can only be stopped by divine intervention. Oh, and even while sharded it can corrupt even high-level characters, meaning you could very well have party members turn against you at any point. You might also find Mr. Lawful Stupid himself defending it, so he can later shatter a reassembled crystal imprisoning the Elder Evil with his Adamantine sword. General strat is to prepare countermeasures against Psychic damage and the like, and focus on Obligatum if he's there - long as he's taken out of the equation, you'll win even if you lose as Pandorym can't be freed now (until Obligatum VIII comes along, at least).
How to tell if your DM is using Pandorym
If your DM isn't basing your campaign around stopping Obligatum VII from completing his Lawful Stupid duties, (and also if you get hints of him being around that should be a red flag) a sign that you might want to try and find lore on it is the shutting off of the planes from one another and divine magic and influence decreasing. This is due to the gods panicking and shutting everything down in order to protect themselves (though if Pandorym is reunited, doing all that was useless). If your in Eberron keep an meta eye on if your doing a lot of work around the Mournlands even going into it on a regular basis. As one of the possible origins of the Mournlands is Pandorym it would make a logical capstone to the adventure.
A glowing rune of binding will also appear in the sky, growing ever brighter until the sky is a revolting mess of rainbow colors right before Pandorym becomes whole. Keeping track of this sky-rune's size is probably the best way to keep track of how much time you have before the day of reckoning. Just be careful not to stare, since the DM can treat looking at the rune like looking at a Prismatic Wall - aka it can blind you.
Once you find out where the crystal shards storing Pandorym's mind are in the multiverse, gear up, have your (hopefully) high-level spellcaster use plane shift with the tuning fork set to the frequency of Pandorym's prison, and deal with the Elder Evil and whoever has been corrupted to free them.