#deathlords

The Lion - Reach for my neck, you'll get turned into an example. Y'all gotta stop playin' with me, man. I threw diamonds at the strip clubs under the Great Pyramids. I pushed a camel through the eye of a needle.

The Mask - Opps wanted some initiative, blew up their entire quadrant. I'm movin' like Oppenheimer.

The Lover - I was flippin' bricks for Mansa Musa before y'all even became a type one civilization. This shit ain't nothin' to me you stupid piece a shit. Step the wrong way and you will perish.

The Prince - Chanel optics got me seein' shit. I need fentanyl, slime! I just popped a whole garbanzo bean, fuck you mean! I smoke real Emrani, rapscallion, ghost nuggets.

The Princess - Last guy who ran off on the pack got choked out by some Givenchy gloves. The last thing he ever saw was the price tag on them. Slowly faded into darkness. And I let the archangels take him

The Bishop - We smokin' shit in a glass pipe, blowin' the Lord’s bubbles. I’m sick in the head.

The Walker - I left my Margiela’s in the Benz trunk. I’ll have to stunt on them next time. I don’t give a fuck if I go blind. I don’t need to see the price tag anyway.

The Eye - You can't trust me. I don't even trust myself. I don't know who I am anymore. I'm getting too much money. Ass so fat.

Things that make interactions with Deathlords useful for the players, which would be nice for the Abyssals and make the underworld more appealing for everyone else.

Things that gently encourage you to align yourself with their plans and philosophies by giving you nice stuff, rather than doom-mind whammies or something.

I pitched a charm idea to my GM for the Bishop of having him offer a willpower whenever anyone chooses to allow him to erode one of their positive ties. That’s a good incentive for someone worried about being in a long social engagement with a deathlord while also softening the blow of loss.

The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils is one of my favorite Deathlords because she's Darth Vader.

Hear me out on this.

I'm not talking about that creepy thing where she abducts children or what have you. I'm more interested in her relationship with the other Deathlords. In this metaphor, I see them as the officers in the Imperial Navy. They're servants of a dark master, they command terrible power themselves. They have their own ambitions and their own goals to accomplish, which aren't always completely in line with the goals of their masters, but are generally tolerated. The Deathlords have their marching orders, but as the officers at the top they're given a lot of discretion in how they accomplish their goals. Usually.

Because sometimes, when the situation is dire, the Dowager comes marching in like Darth Vader, and Darth Vader has zero patience for this bullshit. The imperial officers are evil, but they're evil in all sorts of petty, stupid, human ways. Likewise, the Deathlords can be their own worst enemies when it comes to ending creation. The Dowager, like Darth Vader, is evil in a way that is dangerously focused. She's the evil that scares all the other evil people, the one who takes this all so damn seriously. Like Vader, she's got a power the others don't understand, a power that they fear. Vader has the Force, the Dowager has the Well of Udr and the insight it grants. She's got no interest in their side goals, and I absolutely believe she'd dish out a good, old-fashioned force-choke to anyone who dared suggest she ease up on the whole end-of-the-world angle. Though she sometimes feels a desire for redemption, more than any of the other Deathlords she fits the bill as the tortured, trusted right hand of the Neverborn. She's one red lightsaber short of the full image, I say.