Dretch Lord (Basic Lore)

Dretch Lord (CR 11)
Chaotic Evil - Medium - Outsider (Demon)
Even the lowest demons of the Abyss are dangerous and filled with a driving need to spread ruin and dismay. The lowly dretch is as hideous and foul as it is cruel, even if it lacks the strength and power to realize its need to brutalize others in its native realm. The lot of the dretch's existence is to serve more powerful demons as victims, and only the lucky few survive long enough to evolve. The dretch is a favorite target for dabblers in Abyssal spawnings to call forth. Relatively weak and easy to bully, dretches can often be pressured into long periods of servitude with only vague promises of the opportunity to vent their frustrations and anger on softer foes. Yet the prospective dretch-spawner would do well to remember that these demons are as craven and untrustworthy as they come. A dretch faced with a more powerful foe is only too eager to trade what it knows for its pitiful excuse for a life. Unlike most demons, a dretch's slovenly personality and disdain for prolonged physical labor rarely result in success. Advanced dretches are rare, but those who do find it within themselves to be more than they were at creation often become the pauper-kings of the Abyss, cruel and bitter in their rule over vermin, broken souls, mindless undead, and other dretches. Their empires are confined to abandoned stretches of sewers under backwater cities, unstable reaches of swampland avoided by more sensible minds, and other undesirable corners of the Abyss that even demons find uncomfortable or foul. Yet to the dretch lords, these realms are their empires, and they defend them with a pitiful tenacity. The Dretch Lord, or Pauper King, as it is referred to, is an example of Dretch-dom which has fully ripened into utter horror. They are giants among Dretches, the size of a grossly fat man, and vile and hedonistic in all matter of things. Despite their grandiose name they are as low, cowardly, and easily bossed around as any lesser Dretch, although they do have some modicum of power, if they are forced to use it. They are still the least of fodder for their betters, but at least they have the glimmer of hope of becoming a demon of real import.