The King of the Undead—Orcus.
Orcus had once been a mortal. No one knew the details of his mortal life, only that even then, he had been a fat man whose whole body looked swollen, and that he was proficient in certain spells. After his death, his soul arrived in the Outer Planes and became one of the lowliest larvae, beginning his struggle through the Abyss.
Eventually, he became one of the most powerful demons in the Abyss.
After Orcus became a Demon Lord, his infamy spread across all the planes. He claimed to be the creator of the undead, creatures of the Outer Planes with peculiar traits, far removed from the Negative Energy Plane. Orcus became even more notorious for possessing the secret of the "living dead." No one knew when Orcus had begun ruling Thanatos (some rumors claimed that he also ruled several other layers of the Abyss), but it had certainly been a very long time ago. Orcus was said to have created the first twelve Death Knights, all of whom had been righteous men in life.
Strictly speaking, the Orcus whom Soren had killed had not yet attained his true King of the Undead form, because Orcus's attributes at his peak were absurdly powerful.
—"Strength 54, Dexterity 25, Constitution 42, Intelligence 34, Wisdom 30, Charisma 42. [Creator] form!" [Note: Information on the King of the Undead's peak form will be posted in the supplementary material after this chapter.]
Orcus's domain was Thanatos.
Thanatos lay on the 113th Layer of the Abyss. This layer was exceptionally cold, filled with ice, thin air, and skies bathed in gloomy moonlight. It belonged to both the tanar'ri and the undead. In fact, the layer had a mildly negative-energy-dominant trait. Even so, infernal moss and fungi still grew along