Thalrad, the Third Demon Lord

This is relevant to the next arc as well, so I hammered out a lot of the details.

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Thalrad, the Third Demon Lord

Demon Lord of Gluttony

Butcher of the Unending Abattoir, Gourmet of Slaughter

Active during Karnalle's 20th Century

Appearance

A putrid pile of sentient meat with many mouths. Grabby arms poke out of the masses every which way, all searching for something to shove into its nearest mouth.

Powers

Tons of mouths with sharp teeth, acidic slime coating his entire body, able to regurgitate stomach acid on command. His mere presence is enough to make other living beings hungry to the point where they will consider cannibalism. Able to use the abilities of anything he's ever eaten or change his form to whatever is appropriate for the current scenario.

Ultimate Form

First, Thalrad shields himself within a pulsating meat cocoon. After a gestation period which cannot be interrupted, Thalrad's mass grows even larger and he can take on both the features and abilities of those who he has eaten. Additionally, he takes on a more concrete appearance as a sort of grub-looking thing, his many arms becoming more like the legs of a caterpillar.

History

Thalrad was a lowly insect-like demon who was born deep underground the Gnarled Woods of Arrark. An unceasing hunger seized him from the moment he hatched, and as he ate, so too did he grow. After eating all that could be devoured in his birthplace, he dug his way to freedom and entered the forests proper. He soon learned that on the surface, he was not the strongest predator around. Not yet, anyway. For years he slowly accumulated strength through opportunistic feeding on anything he could get his grubby little hands on, finding his powers would only increase with every new morsel he filled himself with.

As his size continued to grow, Thalrad found that the humans adventurers of Karnalle began to hunt him more and more often. He realized he couldn't continue to eat his way to the top- not without any help, at least. Luckily for Thalrad, his intelligence had developed alongside his physical growth and he was able to quickly create a plan. Within the Gnarled Woods lives a tribe of animalistic pig-men. Until now, they were one of Thalrad's favorite snacks. Yet he approached them and offered an alliance, promising to no longer devour them as long as they serve him with their lives. Scared of the great devourer, the pig-men quickly agreed.

The next time Thalrad was attacked by adventurers, he no longer had to flee. He lured them into a trap, and set his new forces upon them. By working together, Thalrad and his servants defeated the humans and the future Demon Lord took his long awaited prize- his first taste of human flesh. He saw everything that human had ever experienced. His joys, his sorrows, everything up until the sweet fear of being devoured. Thalrad knew from then on that he would only ever be satisfied by eating more humans. Any attempt he made at eating anything else proved futile, his stomach violently rejecting it. With no other option, he embraced his destiny and outfitted his pig soldiers with the gear of the defeated adventurers and sent them to attack a nearby village.

Eating an entire village gave Thalrad his greatest power boost yet, and it was at this point that his powers as a Demon Lord began to awaken. His mere presence made his pig-men stronger, other demons and monsters flocked to him with offerings of humans, and the realm as a whole became aware of the threat growing in Arrark. Unfortunately for Karnalle, the King at the time was continually downplaying the threat and by the time they actually started taking it seriously, Thalrad had already set up literal factories of death hidden in the Gnarled Woods where his soldiers would process humans into meat for the Demon Lord to consume.

He oversaw a reign of tyranny for nine years, yet he was not filled with the same ambitions many of the other Demon Lords found themselves afflicted with. Instead of trying to destroy all of Karnalle or bend it to his will, he was mostly content with adventurers seeking him out and having his soldiers attack villages to provoke more prey to run into his waiting maw.

Defeat

The Hero of Light who countered Thalrad was nothing more than a humble Druid who came from the northern forests of Arrark, sensing the great disturbance to nature's balance brought on by endlessly devouring. Although the Druid was met with horrors every step of his journey, in the end, the Druid bested the best of Thalrad's army and challenged his enemy to a climactic battle. It was long and drawn out with Thalrad being forced into his ultimate form and the Druid exhausting every last one of nature's weapons.

Ultimately, the Druid of destiny lost... but the funniest thing happened.

He allowed Thalrad to devour him with a smile on his face, as it is a law of nature for the strong to eat the weak. Confused, the Demon Lord nonetheless devoured his foe only to be overcome with none of the emotions he most looked forward to when eating a meal. His prey was not afraid of him, not even a bit. He was wholly resigned to the fate of being eaten, and such selflessness proved poison to the Demon Lord who feasted on fear and despair.

Thalrad vomited the Druid out and proceeded to puke until the surrounding area became a massive crater of his own stomach bile. The taste of self sacrifice was poison. In the end, Thalrad was reduced to nothing by his own digestive acid and the Druid survived, vanishing back into the forests without claiming any of the credit. The only reports about him are little more than local legends.

Legacy

While many of them were destroyed after his death, several of Thalrad's ruinous abattoirs have survived into the modern age. The Gnarled Woods have a magical air about them, so new things are always discovered hiding within their mysterious depths. These slaughterhouses are supposed to be destroyed on sight, none of them are ever officially registered as dungeons despite having many monsters and treasures still lurking within. This is because such demonic and twisted structures can warp a man's mind beyond the point of recognition, and past attempts to explore the abattoirs as dungeons have all ended in unmitigated tragedy without exception.

The pig-men still remain as well, having been forever tainted by the Lord of Gluttony's influence. They worship Thalrad as a God and wish for him to return to lead their forces once more. They all hunger for human flesh, but are drastically more withdrawn then they used to due being hunted far, far more ever since they sided with the vile Demon Lord.