Tharizdun

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Tharizdun
Alignment	2E/3E: Neutral Evil 4E/5E: Chaotic Evil
Divine Rank	Intermediate God
Pantheon	Dawn War, Oerth
Portfolio	Eternal Darkness, Decay, Entropy, Malign Knowledge, Insanity
Domains	3E: Destruction, Evil, Knowledge 5E: Trickery
Home Plane	Demiplane of Imprisonment
Worshippers	Aberrations, Insane people, Worshippers of The Elder Elemental Eye
Favoured Weapon	Spiral of Decay (Whip)

Tharizdun, also called the Elder Elemental Eye and the Chained god, is one of the first of the main pantheon of the Dungeons & Dragons Universe to come into being. Originally, he was a Neutral Evil god who betrayed the gods to lead the Primordials at the beginning of time during the war for creation. Having been tempted by the obyriths with promises of unlimited power, he sought out a shard of Pure Evil™ that he thought could fuel a hate machine of destruction that would put an end to everything but himself. As such, he created the Abyss at the ass-end of the Elemental Chaos. In the process, though, it drove him insane and made him Chaotic Evil, and while more powerful than ever was too batshit to control himself. The other gods imprisoned him in chains and cast him into the void, then went back to killing the Elementals and each other. Now he just wants to break free so he can annihilate absolutely everything.

Fluff History

Tharizdun was introduced all the way back in AD&D 1st Edition, and was a creation of none other than Gary Gygax (who appears to have tweaked the name from "Thasaidon", the "ruler of the Seven Hells" mentioned in Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique Cycle of short stories). Here, little is really revealed about him other than he exists. Gygax later used him in his novels.

For second edition, he was included in the Greyhawk setting and described in further detail in the From the Ashes set. Here, he was given an affinity towards aberrations, since he himself seems to be the first of their kind (what with the chaos shard).

Third edition detailed his prison dimension within the void. His priesthood is described in Complete Divine.

4th edition finally goes into some friggin' detail about the guy, but once again remains vague and doesn't give him stats, intentionally. Just assume fighting him will get you dead in amazing and creative ways, because if Chaos is known for one thing it's imagination.

Followers

Tharizdun is mainly followed by intelligent aberrants, crazy people and evil rogues who believe him to be a Primordial named the Elder Elemental Eye. This form comes from the rare but dangerous periods of lucidity that the mad one occasionally has. In this guise, he appears within the nightmares of his worshipers as a roiling black chaos that speaks in a shrieking babble. They seek to free him, which is about as bad as you think it would be. Also, due to the inherent nature of Chaos, Tharizdun is the only elder thing (deity OR primordial) to actively encourage his followers to destroy him. Let's all just assume worshipping him is a terrible idea.