Codricuhn
- Through air, I hurl thee...
- With water, I drown thee...
- By fire, I burn thee...
- In earth, I bury thee...
Codricuhn, also known as the Blood Storm, is a Demon Prince from the World Axis cosmology, introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in issue #172 of Dungeon Magazine. A true rarity amongst his kind, Codricuhn is a demon prince worth pitying, for his present abominable state was not what he sought.
Once a Primordial known as the Prince of the Eight Seas, Codricuhn was a rare thing amongst his kin, for whilst he raged against the perceived interference of the gods during the Dawn War, he held no enmity for mortal races. Indeed, he wanted their love - he saw himself as the true father of all mortal races, stained by divine meddling, but still beings who should rightly venerate and serve him as their creator-father.
This belief made him vulnerble to the manipulations of the corrupted Tharizdun, and he rallied to the side of the Chained God in belief that he would be granted dominion over all life once they won. But victory eluded them, and as they plunged into the Elemental Chaos, Codricuhn manipulated his fall so that he fell into the depths of the Abyss. There, unwittingly, he discovered the Seed of Evil, and was consumed by it.
The Seed saw in the fallen Primordial a true minion to carry out its ultimate goal: the annihilation of all that was, to spread the Abyss until it swallowed the multiverse entire - first the World Axis, and then all realities beyond. But, to achieve that state, Codricuhn needed some... improvements.
The Blood Storm is a creature so horrifying that even demons have been known to recoil from it. Impossibly massive, bloated and swollen, fragmented bones and spines of coral randomly burst from or are revealed beneath a pustulent hide, made randomly of angry, diseased-looking demon flesh, masses of rock, and pools of bubbling magma. Its face is formless, a rough lump at the top of its vaguely humanoid frame, defined only by a singular eye-socket - in truth, more of a gaping wound containing a jaundiced orb replete with crimson iris around an impenetrable pupil. As this hideous eye rolls about aimlessly in its socket, an endless tide of gory tears pours forth, as if imploring witnesses to somehow stop him from attaining his unspeakable objective.
For this is the true horror of Codricuhn: though his body has been corrupted into something most foul, and his will seized entirely, his mind is still untouched. The Primordial who merely wanted the veneration of mortals still remains trapped inside this new body, enslaved to carry out the Seed's apocalyptic goals. Despair alone remains to him, compelling him to climb in the dim hope that the obliteration of everything will grant him the peace of death. And he can only find that through completing his goal of unleashing oblivion; the corruption raging through his flesh disallows him from committing suicidal attempts, compelling him to fight to the death against any who would try to stop him.
And there have been many attempts. Gods and mortals, devils, and even other demon princes have all sought to put an end to the advance of the Blood Storm. As such, the gargantuan monstrosity's tumescent bulk is wrapped in chains, forged from iron, bronze and adamantine. Many of these chains bear impossible, terrible weights - wedges, blocks, anchors, animals, monstrous heads and more. All added by long-dead foes in an attempt to halt, or at least slow, Codricuhn's inexorable advance.
Despite his compulsion to clamber forth from the Abyss, Codricuhn does have a kingdom - merely one that he carries with him. From the former Primordial's bulk emanates an endless tide of foulness. Wounds and sores dug by his chains release rivers of demonic blood, streams of befouled water, and geysers of rancid crimson vapors. Crimson mist hemorrhages from dark, suppurating pits dimpling his malformed body. Gale-force winds whip around his bulk, churning mist and fluids into foul, poisonous clouds where lightning dances, crackling and thundering with the urgency of a summer storm. Chunks of tortured earth and metal rip themselves from the planar fabric at his passage, orbiting Codricuhn's shuddering frame like the hands of a clock.
This endless tempest of leprous green clouds, raining blood, echoing thunder, slashing lightning and relentless winds is Coagulus, the Emergent Storm. This is Codricuhn's kingdom, carried with him wherever he goes, part and parcel of his very being.
Orbiting Codricuhn within Coagulus are the Six Spheres; miniature worlds colonized by demons.
- Addaecacus, the smallest of its kind, is a jagged knot of rusting iron, barbs, hooks, and serrated blades, its interior worked into a labyrinth of deadly traps.
- Caedices is a stone ball bristling with towers that jut out at odd angles, all bedecked with leering, blood-vomiting gargoyle faces.
- Condordus is a perfect glass sphere with a mirror finish, which non-demons can only access by betraying an ally and spilling his or her blood onto the surface, revealing an interior where orange clouds roil against a green sky. At its heart lies a crystalline palace, home to the Voice of the Storm.
- Doelen is a dripping ball of mud, covered in rivers of slime that spill from their banks as the sphere orbits its master, the swampy surface rife with deadly mudspouts and geysers and swarming with monstrous crabs.
- Luesithica is a rough chunk of black stone, similar in shape to a great, rotten tooth, its relatively flat surface home to a lake of poisonous waters and gore due to the incessant storms, the runoff ceaselessly spilling down its sides.
- Proelidimar is a shattered half-sphere of obsidian, torn from the realm of Yeenoghu. Half of it is glassy-smooth and round, but the other is a rugged landscape of razor-sharp mounds and deep fissures.
Codricuhn is an uncaring master, though popular with apocalyptic demon-cults and particularly foul demons. The closest thing that he has to a servitor is a self-proclaimed Exarch known as the Voice of the Storm. Once an archon in his service, it was twisted by the Seed of Evil, and exists only to serve that foulness. To this end, it is treachery made manifest, offering sweet promises, but honoring no bargain.
Although far smaller than its master, the Voice is still a grotesquerie. From afar, it could almost pass as an angel, with the physique of an oversized but perfectly formed pale-skinned human man and wondrous feathery wings sprouting from its back. Up close, the true hideousness is revealed; where a face should be, it has only a great, sucking, lamprey-like maw - little more than a gaping hole ringed with countless inwardly-curved teeth, clotted with rotting meat and drenched in drooling toxins.