Mellifleur

The Lichlord

Mellifleur
Mellifleur, as depicted in Monster Mythology (1992).
General information
Portfolio:	Lichdom, Magic
Home:	Gehenna/Krangath/Hopelorn or Gehenna/Mungoth/Death's Embrace
Alignment:	Neutral evil
Gender:	Male
Class:	Wizard 25 (avatar)
Superior:	None
Rules items
Domains:	Death, Evil, Luck, Magic

Mellifleur is the god of Lichdom and Magic. His symbol is a crystal vial held in a skeletal hand, with a ring on its fourth finger.

Description

Mellifleur's features are fairly typical for his kind, though his clean, undamaged, clothing marks him as more concerned with his personal appearance than most liches tend to be. Green gemstones glow within his eye sockets.

Relationships

Mellifleur is opposed by Nerull, who seeks to recapture and absorb Mellifleur's power. For this reason, some neutral good deities will occasionally aid Mellifleur in the hopes of keeping the forces of Evil divided.

The yugoloth known as Typhus was empowered by a cabal of night hags to defeat Mellifleur's armies, back when the lich-god was attempting to seize control of the larva trade.

Realm

Mellifleur's realm, called Death's Embrace, can be found on the Plane of Gehenna. There, he hides many magical phylacteries, which can sustain him should he be overcome, or magically trapped.

In the 3rd edition Manual of the Planes, Mellifleur is called Mellif and his realm, rising from Gehenna's deepest and darkest furnace, is called Hopelorn. Hopelorn is a mortuary city carved from obsidian and is a place where sarcophagi light the streets with a hellish red hue. The tiny slits of windows look out into the dead, black landscape. Liches, and other forms of undead, gather to research the arcane arts and the nature of life and death, dissecting captured fiends in fell experiments. Only the yugoloth race is avoided by the denizens of this place, for fear of bringing that race's wrath down upon themselves, as this is a plane where the yugoloths are at their strongest.

Dogma

Mellifleur encourages mortals to explore the secrets of life and death, and to ultimately become undead themselves.

Worshippers

Mellifleur is worshipped by some liches. Mellifleur delights in guiding mortal arcanists along the path to undeath, as his own power is increased by all such acts.

Myths and legends

Mellifleur was once a mortal wizard (or, as some rumors state, a yugoloth wizard) who performed the rites to make himself a lich. Due to an unforeseen conjunction of the spheres, Mellifleur's ritual tapped into divine forces sent by Nerull, who was, at that precise moment, endeavoring to elevate one of his servants to divinity. Somehow, Mellifleur's magic diverted this power into himself; thus Mellfleur became both a lich and a god in the place of Nerull's favored minion.

The illithids, who seem to know much that is hidden from others, tell a somewhat different story. They claim that Mellifleur interrupted not just one such apotheosis, but many, thus usurping the ascension of many gods on many different worlds. They say that, because of this, Mellifleur became not just a demigod but a lesser god in one unexpected surge of power. This forces Mellifleur to oppose the machinations of many outraged gods of evil.

Bibliography

• Bonny, Edward. "Pox of the Planes." Dragon Annual #2. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1997.

• Boyd, Eric L. Powers & Pantheons. Renton, WA: TSR, 1997.

• Grubb, Jeff, David Noonan, and Bruce Cordell. Manual of the Planes. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2001.

• Sargent, Carl. Monster Mythology. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1992.

• Schneider, F. Wesley. "Forgotten Faiths." Dragon #359. Bellevue, WA: Paizo Publishing, 2007.