The Rise of Tiamat - Arauthator

I was hoping we'd finish episode 2 today, but I doubted we would. It's a pretty big area to explore - a dungeon inside a glacier. But somehow, they did it.

The store remains packed each week for Dungeons & Dragons encounters. It is astonishing.

Elemental Evil

I told the group about the announcement regarding the next storyline. They were quite excited to hear about the new player content. I told them about the genasi race, and they can't wait to find out more. 

The Party   

• (Zhentarim) Elf Rogue: In real life, played by Dark's dad.
• (Zhentarim) Gnome Rogue: Middle Schooler. We joke that his character lives in a garbage can.
• (Zhentarim) Elf Rogue: Middle Schooler. Often does "combo moves" with the gnome, throwing him at stuff to get Inspiration.
• (Order of the Gauntlet) Half-Elf Paladin: Middle Schooler. Oath of the Ancients.
• (Order of the Gauntlet) Half-Elf Fighter: The player is about 25 years old, knows the rules pretty well.
• (Harper) Elf Sorceress: The player is in 4th grade and she loves her little black dragon, "Sparky".

The Ice Hunters 

Last time, the heroes had earned the right to stay on Oyaviggaton through a one-on-one combat with the tribe's best warrior. The heroes were ushered into a storage room and fed raw fish.
 

Some of the PCs were wary of the food. There was a long moment of contemplation. Sparky the black dragon ate some. A rogue's dog ate some (one of the rogues adopted a stray dog in Boareskyr bridge). Dark ate some. Nobody else would dare it.

Good thing, too. It was poisoned. If you fail your save, you are knocked unconscious. Of course, Dark always makes her rolls by a wide margin. The dog actually died, but the paladin brought it back to life with a revivify spell. It's nice to see the group using more magic.

The heroes took an ice hunter hostage and eventually they met with the shaman who explained that the tribe fears the dragon and blah blah blah. She showed them the entrance to the dungeon and down they went.

Room 1.

This dungeon has some cool gimmicks. There's fog that is more dense in certain areas. The floor is icy and thus difficult terrain. There are lots of slopes that the PCs will have to slide down.

The key here is to use some special shoes like the kobolds do, but the PCs weren't able to make that happen.

Room 4.
 

In here are a bunch of kobolds. The adventurers rushed in and slaughtered them. I was thinking about not even rolling this fight out, but I was afraid it might cheapen the overall experience if I hand-waved too much stuff.

Room 5.

It's a room full of junk. Our party gnome is smelly and lives in trash. It is hilarious that almost every episode has a trash encounter for him.

Room 3.

Piles of food for the dog and Sparky to eat. The dog, however, won't eat fish anymore. It did kill him, after all.

Room 6.

This room has a vast pit in the center that drops right down into the dragon's lair. You can go around the pit to get to the hallway across the room, but if you take the left side, there's a 50% chance it collapses.

I was quite interested to see how my group would approach this seemingly innocent room. They were hyper cautious. They came up with quite an odd plan. The paladin teleported across to the other side with misty step. They chucked him one end of a rope. He held one end, and another PC held the other, and PCs crossed directly over the pit via rope climb.

Remember, the floor is ice! They can't get traction! This was quite reminiscent of the super-tetanus razor room in White Plume Mountain. But, after tons of shenanigans and a spider climb spell, no PCs actually fell in. It was quite amusing.

Room 9.

Just a big empty chamber with an up-sloping tunnel that leads to...

Room 10.

An ice troll guards the room, because this is where Maccath the Crimson is. She's the person that the PCs came here to find, because she knows a lot about the Draakhorn (the device calling dragons to the cult).

The PCs tried to trick the troll with an illusion of treasure, but it didn't bite. The heroes ended up murdering it with a killer combo (they do lots of fun combo attacks to get inspiration). Dark cast a firebolt at the troll, and her dad shot an arrow through the bolt, setting the arrow aflame! It was awesome. When he hit, I declared it an auto-crit.

The troll went down quick. Dark wanted to be friends with Maccath (despite being a black dragon sorceress, she wants to be friends with most monsters). And friends they were!

Maccath explained that the dragon was forcing her to translate books. She also explained that the dragon Arauthator has a mate - Arveiaturace. Arveiaturace refuses to admit that her friend, a wizard, is dead. That dead wizard is still on Arveiaturace's back as if it is riding her. Arveiaturace even talks to the wizard as if it was alive. Arauthator is trying to convince Maccath to replace the corpse and be Arveiaturace's new friend, perhaps to cure the dragon's madness.

The players absolutely loved this story. I'm surprised Dark didn't volunteer to be Arveiaturace's new friend. She might have been in the bathroom at the time

Basically, Maccath won't leave this dungeon until some Arcane Brotherhood books are retrieved. These books are in - where else? - the dragon's hoard.

She gave the heroes some awesome magic items to help them defeat the dragon: A ring of cold resistance and 2 arrows of dragon slaying. If an arrow hits a dragon, the dragon must make a CON save or take 6d10 damage. If it makes the save, it still takes half!

Room 11.
 

This Scriptorium has all sorts of funky traps and treasures. Maccath warned the heroes that the stuff was dangerous. The players were again super-cautious and resisted temptation. They just passed on by. They needed to go down the chute in here to the dragon's lair.

I love the chutes. PCs need to make a DEX check to slide down unless they have climbing gear or a clever idea. The group was again super-cautious and used a rope and some other stuff. It turned out they all made their rolls spectacularly well. They slid expertly right down on top of the dragon's icy treasure hoard!

Room 19.

The adventurers were admiring the treasure beneath the ice. And then from the fog (visibility in here is 60 feet) comes the white dragon Arauthator! The dragon won initiative.

In the last fight with a white dragon at the end of Hoard, I had the dragon use it's frightening presence right off the bat and it devastated the party.

I was curious to see how the fight would go if the dragon used a breath weapon first. The tricky thing here is that the PCs have those two arrows of dragon slaying. The dragon is supposed to flee once it's taken 100 points of damage.

I gave it a try, and wow, the breath weapon devastated the party. Nobody went down, but they all got hit pretty hard. Then the dragon hovered above them and used it's tail attacks 3 times as legendary actions.

The party isn't great at ranged attacks, but they had those two arrows of dragon slaying and they had inspiration. So they opened fire and hit with both arrows.

The dragon was hurt bad. On it's next turn, it let out the frightening presence. The whole party was extremely concerned with this, and used all sorts of powers and gimmicks to help them get bonuses to their saves. Even so, I think half the party was frightened (and thus had disadvantage to hit and couldn't move closer).

The dragon had taken over 100 points of damage, so it fled. It was a quick but intense battle.

We had to stop there. The adventurers had indeed conquered episode 2.

Ideas
 

The player reaction to Arveiaturace's story makes me think I need to use her. In this adventure, the cult tries to assassinate the adventurers three times. I decided to use dragons for all three.

We did the first assassination attempt last week, the fight with the red dragon. I am thinking that the second one will be a battle to the death with the red dragon. Maybe the third one will be against two dragons! Arauthator and his mate, Arveiaturace.

I'll have to check and see if this is just too deadly. But I can work in some weaknesses: Arauthator will freak out if his mate is hurt badly, and Arveiaturace will panic if she thinks her "friend" on her back (the long-dead wizard) is in danger. The heroes can exploit this stuff to their advantage, and I think it would make for an epic encounter.

Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to The Pit Fiend

Today I'm going to try and take a comprehensive look at one of the coolest D&D Monsters - the pit fiend.

A pit fiend is an extremely power devil (or baatezu). They are the top of the food chain in Hell (Baator). Pit fiends are meant to be one of the most threatening and deadly monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. You need to be a high level character to hope to survive an encounter with them.

There is a fantastic list of pit fiend NPCs that appeared in D&D products here.

Intent

The goal of this article is to try to collect all of the relevant lore in one place so that if you decide to use them in your campaign, you don't have to dig through 10 different books for cool NPCs and ideas.
 
Most of the content in here is listed by edition. In the case of major pit fiend NPCS like Bel and The Dark Eight, I listed their information at the end. They are discussed in many different sourcebooks, so I compiled the information and placed it all at the bottom.

Miniatures

There are a lot of pit fiend miniatures out there. My favorite is the official one put out by Wizards almost ten years ago.

Simbul the Pit Fiend Slayer

The Simbul

In Ed Greenwood's novel "Elminster in Hell", The Simbul apparently killed four pit fiends! The Simbul is, according to this site, "...a wild and powerful sorceress, highly unpredictable and prone to sudden outbursts of rage."

I tried to find out more, and found some pretty scathing reviews of this book at Candlekeep. One reader mentions that The Simbul's hair allows her to wield multiple magic wands. Please don't tell me she killed four pit fiends with hair wands.

Pit Fiends and Balors

The pit fiend is the smaller one.

It's easy to get a pit fiend mixed up with a balor. They look similar. A Pit Fiend is a devil and a Balor is a demon. Pictured here is a balor fighting a pit fiend, a scene from the 4th edition adventure Prince of Undeath. In it, the heroes have to travel to the bottom of the Abyss, wade through a massive battle between devils and demons, and make their way through a magic forge.

Epic art by Mark Winters

Here's what make balors different from pit fiends:

• They're bigger (balors are huge, pit fiends are large).
• Balors wield a lightning sword in one hand and a fire whip in the other.
• They are re-skinned Lord of the Rings balrogs.

Fun fact: I have an old metal balor miniature that, for some reason, includes the monster's genitals.

AD&D 1st Edition

I really like the look of the original pit fiend in the 1e Monster Manual. They're really wide and sinister, just a classic looking devil that you can tell is very powerful. Here are the properties of a pit fiend:

• Twelve feet tall.
• Personal servants of Asmodeus, lord of Hell.
• Carry an ancus-like weapon in one hand and a jagged-toothed club in the other.
• They can cast fire spells like wall of fire once per turn.
• They have a 70% chance of gating in another pit fiend (and I guess that pit fiend cold do the same, right?).
• They have an aura of magical fear.
• Strength of 18/00, regenerate 2 hit points per round and they have a tail stinger.

Not much else there, as far as detail goes. There's a really cool section on devil talismans in the actual devil entry. I did a bit of searching, but I could not find any significant pit fiend encounters in 1st edition modules.

AD&D 2nd Edition

Baxa

There are a couple of different artistic renderings of the pit fiend, and I really like them all. In 2e, they tended to reprint their monstrous entries in different supplements. So that means that Baxa did the first depiction, which appeared in the Monstrous Compendium. It stays true to the 1e Trampier version, which is massive and someone you do not want to mess with.

In the Planescape Monstrous Compendium, Tony Diterlizzi has a pretty epic depiction of a pit fiend as a purely evil being wreathed in flames. Here's some notes on the 2e pit fiend:

• Gargoylish in appearance.
• They don't communicate much, but use telepathy when they do. 



DiTerlizzi

• Once per year they can cast a wish spell!
• They are the highest ranking devils in the Nine Hells. They are commonly found in Nessus (the ninth layer of Hell)
• They sometimes command legions of devils and lead them into battle against demons.
• "Pit fiends are spawned from the powerful gelugons... when those icy fiends are found worthy, they are cast into the Pit of Flame for 1,001 days after which they emerge as a pit fiend."
• The text says to refer to the gelugon entry which, when flipped to, explains that for a gelugon to be "promoted" to a pit fiend, it must have served Hell flawlessly for 777 years.

What's the Pit of Flame, you ask? Let us consult a supplement...

Planescape - Faces of Evil: The Fiends

The Pit of Flame

The Pit of Flame is guarded by hordes of cornugons and is located in Phlegethos (The Fourth Layer of Hell). It is a huge lake of boiling filth and excreta, burning with searing white flames that reach over 100 feet high.

Devils who bathe in the pit heal and gain strength but also suffer great pain.Those not lawful evil are instantly consumed by the fires.

Fires of Dis

I feel like I talk about this adventure endlessly. Here's the pit fiends that appear in this scenario:

Kri'ik: Kri'ik is a pit fiend that serves Dispater in the Iron Tower of Dis. In the adventure, he tries to embarrass his master by helping the adventurers steal a holy sword named "Guardian" from Dispater's tower.

Zaggutch: This pit fiend first shows up in a very cool encounter. The heroes look into a mirror. Zaggutch appears inside the mirror, and begins doing terrible things to the adventurer's reflections! He kills them and eats them. Here's some of the flavor text:

"Hiya, flaggoes!" laughs the fiend in the mirror, though you can't be sure if he's talking to you or your reflections. "Ready to have some fun? Ol' Zaggutch'll teach ya how to have a real good time!"

Zaggutch is a lieutenant fiercely loyal to Dispater. Dispater has given him the power to become a spirit who can possess people. Zaggutch possessed the paladin who wielded guardian and did his best to turn him evil.

While I hated the section on Tiamat's lair, this adventure has a ton of really cool stuff in it.

Well of Worlds

This book has a number of adventures, including one that deals with the blood war (the eternal war between devils and demons).

Blood Storm

This is a real twisty adventure with many possible outcomes. The heroes get mixed up in a blood war skirmish, where disguised demons and devils try to get the heroes to help them achieve their goals. The devils are represented by a pit fiend named Gallus.

Gallus: He disguises himself as a portly merchant and tries to pay the heroes in cursed gold. If spent, the heroes want more of that particular gold. The only way to get it is to do more work for Gallus.

There's a pretty amusing section of this adventure where the heroes escort a bunch of weird people out for a night on the town. The people are very cruel and extremely lucky at games of chance. It turns out these are polymorphed demons trying to keep our heroes occupied. I can just imagine all the shenanigans that went on when people ran this adventure

D&D 3rd Edition

This depiction of the Pit Fiend is pretty good. I especially like the pit fiend miniature that came out in this era. It does a good job of keeping the tone of the original depiction but also blending in the modern elements.

• Third edition pit fiends have an AC of 40, over 200 hit points and have very high spell resistance.
• The bite of a pit fiend can infect you with a strength-draining disease called "devil chills"
• Twice a day, a pit fiend can summon a few devils like an erinyes or an ice devil.
• 3rd edition has some helpful combat tactics, which is a cool feature. Basically, they'll probably hit you with a fireball, than a meteor swarm (!) and then close in on an injured PC for the kill.

Devilishly Difficult Opponents

This article on the wizards site discussed pit fiends in 2007. It mostly talks about how to handle pit fiends in the 3.5 rules system. There's a nice sidebar that discusses the notion that devils like pit fiends deplore chaos and keep meticulous records.

Fiendish Codex 2: Tyrants of the Nine Hells

This book, to me, is the best supplement on Hell. It has so much great stuff. The 2e Guide to Hell is very good as well, but this gets more in-depth and has much better art.

The Court of Asmodeus includes a number of pit fiends:

• Alastor, executioner of Nessus
• Baalberith, majordomo of the palace
• Martinet, constable of Nessus

There's also a very cool spell..

Investiture of the Pit Fiend: It's a 9th level spell that gives the target fangs and wings of a pit fiend. The target can do stuff like make claw attacks, let out a cloud of disease-ridden air, or gain a fear aura. It lasts around 15 minutes.

Lord of the Iron Fortress
 

Lydzin

This adventure involves a half-duergar/half-red dragon named Imperagon. He's re-assembling this powerful efreet sword called the Blade of Fiery Might. Once the sword is made, he's going to lead an army of allies that includes illithids and "the hosts of hell" to attack our heroes' world.

Imperagon's main devil ally is a female pit fiend named Lydzin. Lydzin's minions include a devil-tainted cloud giant, a fiendish hydra named Torrix.

The adventure goes to great lengths to explain how Lydzin used a wish spell on the fortress, and has placed an unhallow spell and all of these magic symbol traps throughout the place.

Lydzin is part of the final battle, turning invisible and using spells, mostly.

D&D 4th Edition
 

Obviously the 4e version of the pitfiend is more concise and has some new powers. 

4e has declared that each pit fiend is a lord of a large domain and is a vassal of an archdevil. Pit fiends run cities and lead legions. Each archdevil commands less than 12 pit fiends, except Asmodeus. Other details:

• They lurk in the background and scheme.
• They have a flame-touched mace
• This power is awesome: A pit fiend can slide an allied devil up to 25 feet and cause it to explode, injuring foes.
• It could summon devils once per encounter, which is very, very rare in 4e. It can summon 8 minions to use as fodder for it's explosion power.

Manual of the Planes

This pit fiend just doesn't look right to me

The 4e manual has a nice section on Hell that discusses a few different pit fiends in passing:

• Amon: A pit fiend who serves as the seneschal of Levistus. He commands a vast stygian army.
• Lenphant: A pit fiend that controls a city called Grenpoli, the City of Guile on the seventh layer of Hell.
• Neshm: A pit fiend who rules Neshminaar, a secretive city in Nessus. Here, devils experiment with breeding monsters and creating infernal constructs.

E3 Prince of Undeath

In this super-high level adventure, our heroes end up rescuing the Raven Queen from Orcus, who is trying to kill her and become the god of death.

Utarla: A female pit fiend who is trying to stop Orcus's plot. The heroes can avoid a fight with her by convincing her that they're on the same side (in a really lame skill challenge). Her master is Asmodeus.

D&D 5th Edition
 

The 5e pit fiend has most of the same powers as earlier versions. It can cast fire spells and has a fear aura. They have "...an inflated sense of superiority and entitlement", which is amusing. They are manipulative and political.

I really like the artistic depiction of them, although it's got some weird blue tint thing going on. I'd really like someone to paint what a female pit fiend looks like. Do they look just like the males?

Dead in Thay

Baazka

Baazka had tried to build an army in Dragonspear Castle in the Forgotten Realms, but a priest of Tempus defeated Baazka using a magic sword called Illydrael. The blade broke off in the pit fiend's body as it fled through a portal.

"Had the blow killed him in the world, the devil could have returned after a century to wreak his revenge. Had it killed him in the Nine Hells, Baazka would have ceased to exist. Instead, the pit fiend’s black heart continued to beat around the blade. Fearing that removing the broken sword would mean his end, Baazka has struggled along in the Nine Hells, reminded of his desire for revenge with every painful heartbeat."

Baazka can enter the Forgotten Realms only in a ghostlike form that can possess people. How cool is that? Baazka proceeded to team up with the Red Wizards of Thay to build a bloodgate that might cure him of his condition as well as allow the Thayans to bring their forces to the Sword Coast.

Major Pit Fiends Referenced in Multiple Editions

The Dark Eight

Legend has it that long ago, a pit fiend named Cantrum teamed up with eight other pit fiends to become a sort of mediating body between the Lords of Hell and the devils. Cantrum was assassinated. The rest of them, The Dark Eight, are now in charge of running the Blood War.

They hold council four times per year at the fortress of Malsheem in Nessus. The assassin of Cantrum was a paladin from Mount Celestia who was killed before he could escape Hell. If they go to other planes they magically disguise themselves as humans.

When a member of the Dark Eight is slain, another pit fiend replaces them, takes on the destroyed member's name and magically alters its' appearance. The idea is to promote the concept that the Dark Eight are immortal.

They are:

• Baalzephon - Supply Master of Baator, the only surviving member of the original group.
• Corin - Spymaster, frets a lot, always expects the worst.
• Dagos - Marshall of the Pits, haughty and contemptuous.
• Furcas - Minister of Mortal Relations, restless.
• Pearza - Chief of Research, magic-obsessed, commands Fierna's armies, but cozying up to Mephistopheles.
• Zaebos - Minister of Promotions.
• Zapan - Minister of Immortal Diplomacy, "reviled by all for his fawning demeanor".
• Zimimar - Minister of Morale, described as "thundering".

Bel

He was a general in the blood war who convinced the demons he was defecting, then led a huge demon army right into a devil ambush. As a reward, he was given control of all of the armies on Avernus (the first layer).

• Bel went on to betray Zariel, the ruler of Avernus. He overthrew her and took control of Avernus.
• He captured Zariel and has been draining her energy to add to his own.
• Bel's Blade: +3, +5 vs. demons. It does double damage against cold/ice creatures.
• Bel is trying to form an alliance with Tiamat. She agreed to let him use her abishai (draconic demons). "Imprisoned in the bowels of the Bronze Citadel, Zariel languishes under the cruel knives of abishai torturers that carve off bits of her flesh to feed their master."
• On page 68 of the 5e Monster Manual, Zariel is listed as the current ruler of Avernus. On page 64 of the 5e DMG it is said: "The archduchess Zariel rules Avernus, supplanting her rival, Bel, who has fallen out of Asmodeus's favor and is forced to serve as Zariel's advisor". 

Final Thoughts

I think pit fiends are awesome. I don't like some of the ways they've been used in certain products. I don't think they should be snooping around in disguise - they should send flunkies for that. I also don't think they should run cities. It just doesn't feel right to me.

My take on pit fiends is that they are terrifying warlords. When they show up somewhere, everybody quakes in terror. Because they are used to this reaction, they serve the archdukes begrudgingly and regard them with resentment. Only the fact that they focus their hatred on the demons keeps the archdukes relatively safe from full-fledged devilish treachery.

Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to Tiamat

by Wayne Reynolds

In this article, I am going to do my best to run down what is known about one of the most legendary monsters in D&D history: Tiamat, the five-headed dragon. I have gone through many different Dungeons & Dragons products and can now present to you a fairly definitive look at one of the most popular villains in the game.

I'm sure I've missed some stuff, but this should give you a solid foundation of knowledge to help run Tiamat effectively.

First I'm going to go over a few miscellaneous things about Tiamat. Then I will run down details about Tiamat from each edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Tiamat Is Not Takhisis?

Takhisis by Clyde Caldwell

In the Dragonlance setting, there is a goddess named Takhisis who is very similar to Tiamat. Different products say different things about what the deal is with these two. Some suggest that they are the same being, others say that they are aspects of each other.

Apparently, the Planescape supplement On Hallowed Ground presents them as completely separate entities. In Tiamat's Monster Mythology entry, there is a vague notation:

In the 5e book Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, it is made official: Takhisis is Tiamat.

Tiamat from the Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series

Tiamat on the cartoon is this sort of other-villain, a force of nature that hates the heroes and their enemy Venger, alike. Tiamat is shown to have multiple lairs. She often dwells in this weird demiplane known as the Dragon's Graveyard, a place where magic items are more powerful.

I am usually not one to advocate for Wizards of the Coast to use material from the cheesy 80's cartoon, but I'd love to see the dragon's graveyard worked in to official lore. It's much cooler than a lot of the stuff Tiamat is involved with in the D&D game. It feels "special", like it should.

Tiamat Miniatures

There's two Tiamat miniatures made for the game. The old one shows Tiamat on her feet, while the new one shows her flying in the air. They're both expensive, but very cool to own. 

AD&D 1st Edition

In the 1e Monster Manual, Tiamat is listed under "Chromatic Dragon.". From what I understand, in the original D&D white box, Tiamat is called "The Chromatic Dragon". We learn that:

• She rules the first plane of the Nine Hells where she spawns all of evil dragonkind.
• Her heads can cast spells, use breath weapons, or bite.
• She can only use each breath weapon once per day.
• Each head can cast two spells. The blue head casts 4th level spells, the red head casts 5th level spells.
• If a head is cut off (it only takes 16 points of damage to do so) it grows back the next day.
• She has five consorts in her lair.
• If her body takes 48 points of damage, she is sent back to hell.

Dragon Magazine #38
 

Tiamat has a few spells

Lenard Lakofka strongly advises that Tiamat be made a deity. He offers a revised stat block, changing her AC from 0 to -3 (in old editions, a low AC is good). He submits that she is an arch devil and has a slew of at-will spells like Animate Dead and Teleportation. +2 or better weapon to hit her. Vorpal blades will not sever a head (!?) unless a natural 20 is rolled.

He lists her consorts and says that they can cast spells and that Tiamat gets rid of them when they get old. How shallow! He further notes that protection from evil/devil just plain do not work in hell.

I appreciate Lenard's zeal here. He is really trying to make sure Tiamat is a big deal. I also love the idea of a party of heroes fighting five dragons, one of each type, at the same time!

Dragon Magazine #75

I've covered this legendary Ed Greenwood "Nine Hells" article previously, but for the sake of completion... Her lair in hell is known as "The Dragonspawn Pits". When she mates, it is in a protective ring formed by the other four. Hmm.

She bears litters of 1-4 "mewlings" (I love Ed Greenwood). It says that most of her offspring are regular dragons, but any newborn spawn who are multi-headed are eaten by her!

Tiamat loves finding new 1st to 5th level spells.

Throne of Bloodstone

This is a really insane adventure for impossibly-high level PCs: "For Character Levels 18-100". The heroes learn that they can destroy the Wand of Orcus by dipping it in the blood from Tiamat's heart and bringing it to Bahamut, god of good dragons.

Bahamut himself teleports our heroes right to Tiamat's Den, and the heroes immediately battle Tiamat and her 5 consorts (one chromatic dragon of each color) in a combat arena.

If the PCs fail and flee, Bahamut is not happy. He teleports them back to Tiamat's Den, still wounded, and battle the bad guys again. Of course, Tiamat and her 5 consorts are fully healed. 

AD&D 2nd Edition

Monster Mythology

I love this book. In fact, I love most of these blue DM reference books from 2e.

This book talks a bit about Bahamut (the good guy dragon god) and Io, the supreme god of dragons. The flavor for Io is beyond Epic. "Io is the creator of all dragonkind, father of the Sleeping Deep Dragons whose spirits lie at the core of many worlds still, the whose blood, thoughts, and life force established the ground for creation and sustain it still"

In 4th edition, they altered this a bit. Io was cut in half by a primordial, and the two halves became Bahamut and Tiamat. There is an epic destiny that allows a PC to unite Tiamat and Bahamut to re-form Io. It happened in my Scales of War campaign.

This is Io about to be cut in half by a primordial

Tiamat is a nasty lady: "...she enjoys such wretched pastimes as torture, bickering, and fighting among her consorts, as well as destroying valuables and treasures which her avatars bring to her.."
Her avatars bring her treasure? I don't get that. Isn't an avatar just a projection of herself?

Her stats are different:

• Her AC got bumped to a -12!
• Each of her heads can use their breath weapons three times per day
• Immune to all spells under 5th level
• The Blue head's breath weapon does 14d12+14! Can you imagine rolling 14 d12's at once? They'd roll all over the place.

The author did a fantastic job of fitting tons of info into a single page

Planescape - Fires of Dis

I went over this ad nauseum here. Part of this adventure details Tiamat's lair in Hell, except that the author declares that the heroes have no chance of battling the dragons or obtaining the treasure, so it is not detailed! There's cursed treasure, a wisdom-draining lake, super-hot gold, and a door to Dispater's realm that you have to crawl through.

Dragon Magazine 260

An-Ur

This is pretty awesome. An article on children of Tiamat!

An-Ur, The Wandering Death: He lives in the ethertal plane eating concentrated ethereal mist. He doesn't like fighting. He can summon ether cyclones that send you to some other plane. Eh.

Dhrakoth the Corrupter: A black dragon with scarred, oozing, membranous wings. This creature is the pinnacle of undeath. It breathes "pure decay", doing 10d8 damage and corrupting living tissue reducing a character's Charisma by d4 points! Wow. He also has an energy-drain breath weapon that drains 2 levels in one shot. Because he feeds on life energy, anyone slain by Dhrakoth cannot be raised or even wished back to life!

He can animate dead and commands a legion. Tiamat apparently created Dhrakoth by fusing his essence (he was a thing in the negative energy plane) with a dragon. While he works with Tiamat, his ultimate goal is to slay all living things.

Mordukhavar

Mordukhavar the Reaver: The spawn of Tiamat and a Pit Fiend (one of the Dark Eight, the generals of the Blood War). OK, that's just awesome. It has six attacks a round, all of them cause a save vs. poison. If you fail, you're in a coma for d4 rounds.

• Breath Weapon #1: Hellfire! It does 22d10 damage.
• Breath Weapon #2: Corrosive acid. 20d8 damage. If you fail your save, it may destroy your items!

Mordukhavar serves Tiamat and travels Hell doing her bidding. He also commands a legion and aspires to become one of the Dark Eight.

D&D 3rd Edition

Deities and Demigods

by Jeff Easley

AC: 69! You need a +4 weapon to hit her. She has blindsight for 10 miles. Each breath recharges in d4 rounds.

They even list her magic items. She's got a portable hole, an amulet of the planes, a cloak of displacement... all sorts of stuff.

The Red Hand of Doom

Azarr Kul by Howard Lyon

This adventure is considered by many to be one of the best adventures of the modern era. It is set in the generic Elsir Vale, a place revisited in the 4th edition semi-sequel Scales of War adventure path.

This adventure is about The Red Hand, a tribe of hobgoblins and monsters who worship Tiamat. One of their allies is a blue dragon named Tyrgaron. The heroes do all sorts of cool stuff in this adventure, like trying to recruit an elf army to battle The Red Hand. In the end, they must go to The Fane of Tiamat to take out the leader, Azarr Kul. 

I feel very conflicted about giving spoilers to the end of this adventure, so look away if there's any chance of you playing The Red Hand of Doom. You're ruining it for yourself..

Once Azarr Kul is slain, Tiamat tears the roof off and swallows his corpse. The heroes must battle an aspect of Tiamat.

If has an AC of 25 and 174 hit points. Each head can breathe every d4 rounds (doing 12d8 each!).

D&D 4th Edition

Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons

On page 158, there is a truly epic Tiamat trap. All five heads breathe. It nearly killed my entire party.

This trap is part of a mini-adventure called The Regnant Fane. The fane was created by none other than Azarr Kul before he was slain. Tiamat laid some eggs in here..! My heroes kept the eggs and raised the dragons as pets (this seems to happen a lot in my games).

Tiamat gets a full entry starting on page 244. "A nightmarish synthesis of hatred, rage and draconic might embodied in the form of a five-headed dragon."

• She's the evil goddess of wealth. greed and envy.
• All evil dragons pay homage to her.
• She is rumored to have the ability to take the form of a dark-haired female mage.
• In 4e, she lives in the Astral Sea, on a floating island called Tytherion. It's a place of gloom and lightless terror. This is a clean break from Tiamat being trapped in Hell, and I'm not sure why they did this. What's weird is that in the 4e cosmology, Hell is in the Astral Sea.
• Her stats are crazy. She rolls initiative 5 times! One for each head. She can have all five heads breath at the same time, doing ongoing 25 acid/cold/fire/lightning/poison.
• There's a few sidebars detailing deity discorporation and suggestions on how to slay Tiamat for good.

They still kept the Maggot Pit from Fires of Dis, though.

Dungeon Magazine #172 - Legacy of Io

Tiamat vs. Bahamut by William O'Connor

This is one of my favorite adventures of all time. It is part of the Scales of War adventure path, which is about Tiamat's evil schemes from start to finish. Rather than list each adventure in the path, I'm just going to discuss the two most directly relevant to Tiamat herself.
 

The plot of this adventure is that Tiamat has killed Bahamut. What our heroes don't know is that Bahamut had placed a portion of his essence in a deva named Amyria, an NPC who's been a part of our heroes for a very long time in the path. Amyria can be used to bring Bahamut back to life.

To stop Tiamat's schemes and to resurrect Bahamut, the must find an artifact known as The Arrow of Fate, a spear made of Io's blood. Way back in the Dawn War, Io was cut in two by a primordial. The two halves became Bahamut and Tiamat. The little leftover blood became the Arrow of Fate.

Dungeon #175 - Last Breath of the Dragon Queen

This is a fantastic adventure, the culmination of the Scales of War adventure path. Our heroes go into Tiamat's lair and kill her! I highly recommend that you take this lair and stick it in hell, over top of the "Fires of Dis" version.

Tiamat's lair is on Tytherion in an area known as Azharul. Her lair itself is known as the Caverns of Fiery Splendor. Bahamut gives our heroes canaries which can transform into gold dragon mounts to help them battle her.

Tiamat is on this platform way up in the air, held aloft by a twisting column of lava. At the base, there's five statues. If the PCs try to fly up to her, the statues fire disintegrator beams which pretty much just instantly kill you. Each of these statues is linked to an ancient dragon lurking in the lair. Killing the five ancient dragons deactivates the statues.

These five dragons are ancient brood mothers.

This is another odd thing about the 4e Tiamat. It says that "For all her power, Tiamat is unique among dragonkind and cannot lay eggs herself."

This not only contradicts lots of previous lore, it also contradicts the 4e Draconomicon.

• Red Dragon Brood Mother: Lurks on islands in a vast pool of magma. She's pregnant with dragon eggs!
• Green Dragon Brood Mother: She lurks in a a pool of water with many floating logs. She is attended two by a pair of dragonborn vampires.
• White Dragon Brood Mother: She lurks in ice and water. Her eggs aren't hatching, so she tried using necrotic energy on them.
• Black Dragon Brood Mother: She's in a forest of twisted trees.
• Blue Dragon Brood Mother: She is in a dusty room with mini-cyclones flying about.

 

by Mike Schley

The final fight with Tiamat is beyond epic. When I ran this in 2010, I had to adjust the brood mother stats, as the 4e monster math often erred on the side of too many hit points, not enough damage. But the Tiamat fight went perfectly. This battle was the culmination of 114 sessions of D&D.

D&D 5th Edition

The Rise of Tiamat

The entire first storyline of 5th edition is about a cult trying to bring Tiamat out of Hell and into the world. So the whole "Tytherion" thing has been forgotten.

The plot culminates in the final episode, where two armies wage war as the cult tries to bring Tiamat through a portal. The heroes may only have to shut the portal off as she comes through, or they may have to battle her for the fate of the Forgotten Realms.

People online have complained that no party of 15th level PCs could kill her. I have no idea if this is true. I should find out in a few months when my party plays through this.

She has a lot of hit points but her AC isn't too high. My level 8 party fighter can hit her right now, though he has to roll pretty high.

She can cast Divine Word, which kills anyone with 20 hit points or less instantly!

Her legendary actions involve her 5 heads and the breath weapons. She can breathe twice per round, more or less. I wish they'd given her a combined breath weapon attack.

Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus

Once the group gets to Avernus, they may interact with Tiamat, depending on what their plan is. Tiamat's servant, Arkhan the Cruel, will most likely speak on her behalf. It is possible that ultimately, Tiamat will help the group free the chained city of Elturel.

Tiamat's Stolen Treasure: A Dead Three cultist and a Duke of Baldur's Gate named Thalanna Vanthampur has possession of stolen money from the hoard of Tiamat (it was originally stolen by agents of Zariel, the archduke of Avernus).

In the Baldur's Gate section of this adventure, the heroes can find the stolen treasure, which is contained in 4 chests, and more is found in another area. Here's the total hoard:

• 6,900 cp
• 1,750 sp
• 10 eye agates (10 gp each)
• 20 azurite gemstones (10 gp each).
• A delicate porcelain dragon mask (25 gp). Each spire is shaped and painted to resemble one of the five kinds of chromatic dragons.
• A bronze crown with five spires (250 gp)
• A broken ivory dagger called "Fang" worth 250 gp if repaired.
• 2 potions of fire breath

4 cultists of Tiamat have been sent to Baldur's Gate by Arkhan the Cruel to find the stolen treasure.

Uldrak: An Empyrean who served Surtur. He tried to kill Tiamat, but failed, and was transformed into a spined devil (he needs some of Tiamat's blood to regain his former form).

Krull by David Sladek

Krull: A tortle death-priest of Tiamat. His shell is carved with runes that spell out prayers to Tiamat. He has 4 ghoul assistants. He can cast up to 7th-level spells, including anti-life shell, create undead, and regenerate.

Arkhan the Cruel by David Sladek

Arkhan the Cruel: A dragonborn who serves Tiamat and wields the Hand of Vecna. He lives in a tower on Avernus, and commands 50 skeletons, 30 zombies as well as 5 dragons:

• Obtala: An adult white dragon 
• Slarkas: A young black dragon
• Vistalancer: A young blue dragon
• Vermilius: A young green dragon
• Flash: A red dragon wyrmling
  

The Hand of Vecna is slowly decomposing Arkhan's body on one side. He needs to use the Hand to snuff the life out of good-aligned creatures to stave off this effect. Arkhan wears a vial of Tiamat's blood around his neck.

One possibility in this adventure is that the group deposes Zariel with Tiamat's aid, and Arkhan takes her place as archduke.

Torogar Steelfist: Arkhan's bodyguard, Torogar is a minotaur with gauntlets of flaming fury.

Chango: Arkhan's minotaur companion.

Monument to Tiamat: This locale protects a tunnel that leads to Tiamat's lair. "A colossal dragon’s skull leans against a mountainside, surrounded by bones the size of houses. Acrid smoke rises from the skull’s maw."

A tunnel at the back of the skull leads to Tiamat's lair. Abishai of all colors nest in the caves behind the skull.

Burney: Burney appears to be a barber working at the Wandering Emporium of Avernus, but she is actually an ancient copper dragon in disguise. She is a spy who serves Bahamut. She is keeping an eye on Tiamat and her followers.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

by Tyler Jacobson

This book contains an ancient poem called the Elegy of the First World. It describes the origins of Tiamat and Bahamut. 

"...before the myriad worlds of the Material Plane came into being, before Oerth and Toril and Eberron and Krynn existed, the primordial dragons—Bahamut and Tiamat—worked together to create the Material Plane in the form of a single First World. All the worlds that now constitute the plane are, in the words of the poem, “seedling realities” formed when the First World was sundered in some unexplained catastrophe."

Sardior: Bahamut and Tiamat also created the first dragon: Sardior, a ruby dragon. "Sardior then joined with Bahamut to craft the metallic dragons and with Tiamat to craft the chromatic dragons. Some dragons who have studied the poem believe that Sardior was destroyed and shattered along with the First World and that the Ruby Dragon’s splintered consciousness became the gem dragons on the new worlds of the Material Plane."

Tiamat is known as "Tchazzar" in the Forgotten Realms.

Tiamat is known as "Takhisis" in the Dragonlance Setting.

Flail of Tiamat: A magic flail +3 that has five jagged heads shaped like the heads of five different chromatic dragons. The heads can breathe multicolored flames (you pick acid/cold/fire/lightning/poison) that do 14d6 damage.

by Chris Rahn

Tiamat is a God: "Bahamut and Tiamat, the primordial dragons and the purported creators of the First World, are the closest things to gods among dragonkind. Since they share the same fundamental connection to the Material Plane as their dragon offspring, Bahamut and Tiamat are ontologically distinct from the gods that hail from the Outer Planes. But for practical purposes, they are divine—worshiped by mortal creatures, able to grant cleric spells to their followers, and both ageless and immortal. Since the destruction of the First World, both primordial dragons now dwell in the Outer Planes—Bahamut on Mount Celestia and Tiamat in the Nine Hells."

Aspect of Tiamat: We learn a bit about Tiamat's current predicament:

"Since the destruction of the First World, she has dwelled in the Nine Hells—some say by choice. But others claim that she is imprisoned there to punish her for the evils she perpetrated when the gods sought to colonize the First World with their followers."

She remains in the Nine Hells, but Tiamat can send her aspect to manifest in the Material Plane.

Dragonborn of Tiamat: Also known as "Talons of Tiamat," these dragonborn struggle to free Tiamat from the Nine Hells. They often work with the Cult of the Dragon, and their breath weapon is shadowy fire (it does necrotic damage and frightens those hit by it.

That's what we have so far! Thanks for reading.