Tharizdun

Tharizdun
Aliases	Elder Elemental Eye, the Chained God, the Dark God, He of Eternal Darkness, The Ender, The Patient One, He Who Waits, the Anathema, the Father of Elder Evils, the Author of Wickedness, the Eater of Worlds, the Despised, the Undoer
Alignment	2E/3E: Neutral Evil 4E/5E: Chaotic Evil
Divine Rank	Intermediate God
Pantheon	Dawn War, Oerth, Elder Evils
Portfolio	Eternal Darkness, Decay, Entropy, Malign Knowledge, Insanity
Domains	3E: Destruction, Evil, Knowledge 5E: Death, Grave, 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's WG4, Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. Gary Gygax derived the name Tharizdun from his friend Rob Kuntz's Tharzdu'un (which was probably influenced by 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. Gygax's version of Tharizdun was statted as Neutral Evil, but All-Encompassing Evil is more accurate, as Tharizdun's three Theoparts artifacts each correspond to one of the three flavors of Evil (Chaotic, Neutral, Lawful).

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 detail, 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.

Holy Symbol

A number of symbols have been utilized by cultists of Tharizdun, but the one that is most used, and the one which geometer spellcasters say is theurgically significant, is the black spiral, symbolizing that time is an inevitable descent into entropy.

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.

Artifacts

Druniazth

Druniazth, nicknamed the Claw of Tharizdun, is a thermophagic +5 Frost Sword of Wounding forged of blackish ruinite alloy. Being wounded by Druniazth can result in hypothermia and unconsciousness, and the victim is tainted by a measure of Tharizdun's psychic essence, which most readily manifests as nightmares. Note that the name Druniazth is an anagram of the name Tharizdun.

Gems of Tharizdun

The 333 Gems of Tharizdun when combined are said to be able to open a portal to release Tharizdun from his prison. The magical properties of individual Gems are not described, but given their combined power and their connection to the God of Destruction one can extrapolate that an individual Gem has one or more portal-themed and/or destruction-themed effects.

Spear of Sorrow

The Spear of Sorrow is a +5 Unholy spear made of a black material; the Spear has at least one sorrow-inducing effect and one or more cold-themed effects.

The Theoparts

Representing Tharizdun's all-encompassing evil, each of the three Theopart artifacts corresponds to one of the three flavors of Evil: Chaotic Evil, Neutral Evil, and Lawful Evil. When brought together the three Theoparts release an avatar of Tharizdun.