Fiction:The Firmament/Xel'manikh

"And in the high peaks of the badlands, where a tower of black stone rises, the wizard-god's arms weave a terrible incantation. The heavens break, the graveyard shudders, the elements cry, the astral realms scream, and the eternal hells bow before his magnificence."

- Irkallan Epitaph, describing Xel'manikh

Xel'manikh is the demon lord of pride, magic, tyranny and control.

Appearance
The Enchanting Tyrant is a loathsome creature resembling a tall humanoid insect whose head resembles that of a wasp warped into a gruesome elf-like shape. He has six pairs of legs and a massive tail ending in a stinger, much like a twisted scorpion. From his back grows three pairs of large, veiny and translucent wings. A number of bright white runes float around him at all times, and he always wears a robe which covers his monstrous form with numerous demonic sigils.

History
According to his fellow demon lords, Xel'manikh begun as a festering demon who fed from his greaters like a parasite, until he achieved his current position, though the Enchant Tyrant considers such a tale demeaning of his status. Primordial ruins state he was involved in the Great Gap as one of the demon lords unleashed into the Material Plane by Varagarash Narahil's planar breach; they tell of a monstrous bug who used terrible arcane spells to devour the souls of entire regions of land and reduce them to ashes, until he was banished back to Irkalla with the rest of demonkind by the greater gods.

Realm
The enormous Black Metropolis, the largest populated city of Irkalla, is Xel'manikh's dominion. His personal abode, known as the Sorcerous Tower of Black, is a structure made up of pitch black obsidian which towers most other buildings in the dread-plane. The Black Metropolis is large enough to rival an entire mortal world in length, being the single largest region of Irkalla to be ruled by a single demon lord.

Personality
An insidious and extremely intelligent deity, Xel'manikh is calculating and without any mercy, demanding utmost obedience from his servants at the threat of utter annihilation. He believes that rule must be enforced with fear and violence, and all those who stand before him are unworthy of existing. His sense of superiority is surpassed by none in Irkalla, and he believes himself to be the single greatest demon to have ever existed. Xel'manikh's connection to magic leads him to always seek out new incantations to use in the tormenting of the planes.

Cult of Xel'manikh
Xel'manikh's presence in Telamon often takes the form of cults made up of amoral mages who wish power above all else, leading the demon lord to corrupt them. Cults of the Wizard-King of Hell have plagued the land of Arkhanset for generations, and the demon lord finds himself intrigued by that land in particular, though has been unable to breach it due to the actions of the Arkhan Pantheon.