Full Name: Ba'al
Species: Immortal (Daedra)
Allegiance: Himself
Religion: Agnostic
Social Status: 5 (extremely wealthy, with numerous political connections)
Age: Unknown
Eyes: Variable, often blue-white
Hair: Variable, often black
Height: Variable, usually above 180 cm
Physical Notes: Often appears as a handsome human male of indeterminate race, but with very dark blue-black skin with very pale blue eyes.
Behavioral Notes: Ba'al is soft-spoken and cultured; he speaks with an even tone and often seems to be the very soul of reason. Beneath his refined manners, however, is a taste for cruelty was exceeded only by Revonos, and a lust for power that outstrips even Agemnos. He is, in short, the classic Luciferine devil of popular imagination: Faust's Mephistopheles, the Rolling Stones' "man of wealth and taste," or the Asmodeus of Dungeons & Dragons. He is evil made charming and palatable, and all the deadlier for it.
Supernatural Abilities: Immortal traits; daedric traits; magical prowess equivalent to high master wizard, with specializations in Illusion and Necromancy. Shadows emanate from him when he uses his powers, unless he deliberately chooses to mask it.
Titles
- Prince of the Daedra
- Prince of Darkness
- Prince of Shadow
Background
Little is known about Ba'al, the Prince of Daedra, and he likes it that way. Even his true name is a secret: the word "Ba'al" is a contraction consisting of the first two and last two letters of his name.1
Ba'al was a god of revelry, and he continues to extract power from drunkenness, wild and selfish revelry, binges and orgies, or any other gathering or celebration that descends into chaos and vice. Mardi Gras, if such a thing existed in the MK universe, would give Ba'al an exceedingly great amount of magical power. He also extracted an energy "tax" from the other daedra lords.
Ba'al was also the god of Shadow, a mysterious mirror-realm that lies parallel to the material plane. It was Ba'al who first discovered this plane and taught mortals how to access it, traveling through it for rapid, stealthy transportation and drawing its essence into the material world to give weight and substance to magical illusions, often with a price of eternal servitude to the Prince of Daedra. Much of this knowledge was suppressed by the Lightbringers and the Aedra, for extended exposure to Shadow-magic can corrupt the soul and turn a person toward evil. Still, there are a few secretive orders that have preserved the knowledge of Shadow-magic, assassin-mages who use Ba'al's dark gifts for personal gain. Even relatively pure-hearted illusionist guilds often keep the secrets of shadow conjuration, teaching them only to their best and most disciplined students.
Unlike the other daedra, Ba'al rarely disguised his physical form before the Great Fall: a body of solid black, with blue-white eyes that seem to burn like a gas flame. Now that he needs to conserve his energy, he most commonly appears as an ebon-skinned man with very pale blue eyes. When he has business in Metamor City, he often takes the appearance of a panther theriomorph. When he does choose to walk unrecognized among mortals, he might look like anyone.
Holy Symbol
The Pentagram — a five-pointed star inscribed within a circle.2
Symbolic Creatures
Black panther
Holy Day
Due to the influence of the Lightbringer Order the daedra lords were considered the "bad gods" or devils. As such, the Daedra Lords did not have individual holy days, but were all combined into one night, Daedra'kema (similar to the real world’s Halloween & Walpurgisnacht, with *much* sharper teeth and claws).3
Current Activities
Ba'al rules a small but ardent cult that operates in some parts of the Giantdowns and in several major cities in the north. Rather than advocating overthrow of the government, the cult appears to focus on the pursuit of sensual pleasure. Ba'al takes mortal servants as often as he can and uses them according to their abilities. Some of these servants are mortals who didn't read the "fine print" of spells and other resources, leaving them open to his influence.
Lom Shi'Un is one of the few places where there is an open Church of Ba'al due to the historical influence that Ba'al had on that nation (and when the nation turned into a republic, state religion was abolished).
Ba'al continues to have access to the Shadow; in fact all of the inner planes can still be accessed by the gods (when Merai broke the Axis, it disrupted the connection to the Outer Planes, but the Shadow is an Inner Plane). However, since Ba'al is the one who developed the magic to reach the Shadow, explored it over millennia, and developed the spells using magic from the Shadow realm, a significant portion of his essence is tied up into that plane. As such, the other gods will avoid using the Shadow so they avoid trespassing on a demesne that Ba'al considers his own, and with his connection to it Ba'al would have a substantial advantage to any fight within the Shadow. They could access the Shadow and Shadow magic, but they would probably think of it only as a last resort, and even then would think about it two or three times before actually drawing on that resource.
Anyone who enters the Shadow will draw Ba'al's attention (he's that in tune with the realm), and any who uses his spells without proper payment may find themselves with quite a debt to the Daedra Prince.
This also means that Ba'al has a transportation avenue not really available to the other gods. The Shadow has a different flow of time, so it is possible to effectively "teleport" over great distances by going into the Shadow, traveling to the desired location, and coming out almost instantaneously.
To Walk in Shadow
In "To Walk in Shadow," Ba'al accomplished a number of things that he wanted. First, he negotiated a contract with Kiya/the Empire of Metamor and the Lightbringers to allow him to identify and recruit more Shadow mages. Second, he arranged for a way to inform his siblings and other significant individuals of the war that he's been fighting in Shadow without actually saying it himself (probably because no one else would believe it). Lightbringer agent Clyde Jessup saw a part of the war and dangers up close and Ba'al knew that he would report back on it. Third, he was able to establish another Shadow road, expanding his control over the Shadow.
One possible unintended consequence was the confirmation for the Lightbringers that Xiang is his daughter.
Ba'al and Shadow
None of the following is common knowledge in Metamor City. Even the other gods don't know a fraction of it.
In forthcoming stories it will be revealed that Ba'al's relationship with the Plane of Shadow is more complex than the Lightbringers or the Aedra ever suspected. Everyone knows that the Shadow is home to terrifying monsters that are inimical to mortal life, and that drawing on the power of Shadow can corrupt a person toward evil. What almost no one understands, though — except for Ba'al and a few of his Earthbound children — is that these monsters are not Ba'al's servants, and they do not serve Ba'al's purposes.
The Shadow is not a dark mirror of the real world, as most people suppose; it is the shadow of the Outer Darkness, the Underworld, where it draws near the Material Plane. While the breach at Chateau Marzac was a direct hole between the Material world and the Underworld, the Shadow is an insulating layer that lies between them. Between the realm of What Is and the realm of What Cannot Be lies the realm of What Should Not Be. And in the Shadow, the primordial chaos of the Outer Darkness conjures forth beings whose drive is to snuff out life wherever they find it. Which, of course, is the Material Plane.
Ba'al is not only the one who discovered the Shadow; he is the one who understood the threat it represented. The Shadow's inherent Chaos is anathema to Ba'al's lawful nature, and its goal of destruction runs counter to Ba'al's goal of domination. In order to stop the encroaching chaos from destroying the Material Plane, Ba'al bound his essence into Shadow early in recorded history, weaving in safeguards, backstops, and control mechanisms to keep the Outer Darkness at bay. Ba'al and his children still regularly patrol these defensive lines throughout the Shadow, keeping them strengthened and renewed and destroying the eldritch horrors that try to penetrate them. Most of the time, they are successful, and the ones that do get through are weakened enough for the Lothanasi and other mortal agents to eliminate them.
This is also why Ba'al seeks so strongly to control mortal access to Shadow, and why he gave mortals spells that granted this access but simultaneously put them under obligation to him. Ba'al knew that it was inevitable that mortals would find Shadow and want to use its power; he also knew that having a bunch of spellcasters wandering around Shadow would disrupt his carefully-laid defenses and run the risk of turning those mortals into agents of the Shadow. The goal, again, is control: Ba'al will let humans and other mortals have access to the power, but only in ways that he can control and manage. While extended use of Shadow-magic can still corrupt the soul, using Ba'al's spells to do so simultaneously reduces that soul's ability to act independently of Ba'al's instructions. Such people might become monsters, but they will be monsters that Ba'al can use and direct, and most of the time he can rein them in before their minds are completely consumed by Shadow.
On the other hand, Shadow-magic that does not come from Ba'al does not contain these safeguards. It may contain other safeguards, put into place by ancient high master wizards who understood the danger, but Ba'al does not trust the effectiveness of these spells because he did not create them. As a result, books that contain instructions for accessing Shadow-magic are often stolen or destroyed by Baalite agents, when they can succeed in finding them.4
None of this means that Ba'al is any less evil. He is a bad, bad creature: selfish, cruel, and bent on controlling all of sentient life. But he is not mindlessly evil or destructive, and his control of Shadow serves a purpose in the larger cosmos. Whether that larger purpose was crafted intentionally by the Creator, and whether Ba'al himself even knows that he is serving such a being's greater purpose, is a question that will never be answered with any certainty. All Ba'al knows is that it is his self-appointed purpose, and all of the things he is known for in the material world — the orgies and the dark revels that he directs and controls, the Faustian bargains and manipulative pacts — are a sideshow from his perspective, a mere hobby compared to the much greater work of keeping Shadow contained.
Known Allies
- Xiang Jinn, Ba'al's daughter and Avatar
Known Enemies
- none stated to date, other than the fact that he's the big honcho of the Daedra Lords.
Sources
MK Wiki entry - Ba'al, Pantheon, email with Raven/Etherius August 2010, MK Wiki Entry- Lothanasi, To Walk in Shadow
Story Appearances
To Walk in Shadow: To Walk In Shadow, Part 1, To Walk In Shadow, Part 2A, To Walk In Shadow, Part 2A (Series continuing, June 2015))
Author Notes
Ba'al's modern cult needs a name, and I haven't been creative enough to think of a good one. Suggestions are welcome.
d20 Notes
Alignment: Lawful Evil5
Divine Portfolio: Revelry, Debauchery
Domains: Diabolic, Evil, Pride, Shadow, Tyrant
Weapon of the Deity: Frost Scimitar
Voice Actor
none set yet… but Dave Robinson said yes….
