Fraz-Urb'luu

ripvanwormer's picture

Fraz-Urb'luu, also spelled simply Fraz Urblu, is the Tanar'ri prince of deception. His realm, Hollow's Heart, once filled the entire 176th layer of the Abyss, but it is smaller and weaker since he escaped from his two hundred-year imprisonment by Zagig Yragerne, a powerful wizard from Oerth. He has sworn revenge on the entire Prime Material Plane.

His cult is based on deception. From Dragon #333: "They work behind the scenes, worming their wiles into the minds of nobles, leaders, and heroes, and manipulating events... his favored minions are those who are naturally deceptive or utilize trickery." He has corrupted a sect of rakshasas into serving him. A breed of tanar'ri known as skurchurs serve Fraz-Urb'luu; they are disgusting, wretched creatures in their true forms, but disguise themselves as well-dressed halflings or gnomes and give bad advice to well-meaning leaders.

His cults are always disguised as a church of another deity, typically a good-aligned deity of lesser status. They support these churches with graft and money-laundering, and eventually convince the faithful to commit acts of chaos and evil in what seems to be the greater good, eventually convincing them to martyr themselves so that their souls can travel to Hollow's Heart. There they dwell for eternity as petitioners in the city of Zoragmelok, where each dwells in what he or she expects the afterlife to look like. Eventually Fraz-Urb'luu strips the illusion away, gloating at their despair when they realize the extent of their delusion.

Before his imprisonment, Fraz-Urb'luu's entire layer was like that; according to the 1e Manual of the Planes, its beauty rivaled that of Bytopia or Arborea, but beneath the illusion was decay and rotting flesh.

There's also a brief mention in the Dragon article of Fraz-Urb'luu deceiving rival demon lords and ladies into appearing before his court and seeming to get what they wanted only to be humiliated in the end. It was these angry Abyssal rulers who granted Zagig the ichor lance he used to imprison the Prince of Deception in the second dungeon level beneath his Tower of Power, binding his essence to the face of a jeering clown. The power of the demon's evil has created a confounding maze on that dungeon level that remains to this day, filled with similar clown faces which jeer at those who take the wrong path while slowly stripping them of their attributes (this is detailed in the Greyhawk Ruins adventure).

Sources: 
Faces of Evil: The Fiends
Dragon Magazine #333
Greyhawk Ruins
City of Greyhawk
Monster Manual II (1st edition)
Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
Planescape, Dungeons & Dragons, their logos, Wizards of the Coast, and the Wizards of the Coast logo are ©2008, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc. and used with permission.