Vexclaws

Vexclaw Artwork.jpg|Official Creature Artwork

The vexclaw belongs to a race that was once prized as personal bodyguards and strike force of many a demon prince. The size of its vexclaw retinue determined a prince's status and rank. It is said that this fact made the Vexclaws proud and lazy. After several vexclaw troops were bribed and switched sides in one of the many inter-demonic wars, the fame of the vexclaws quickly began to dwindle. In many courts, leaders of the vexclaw guard were challenged, defeated and replaced; and the new leaders of the bodyguards sooner or later replaced most of the vexclaw forces with more capable ones. Since the vexclaws no longer were seen as status objects, their princes didn't care to object. So the vexclaws fell into obscurity for a while, shunned by other demons or even hunted for sport. At their lowest point, the vexclaws were expendable mercenaries of hell which were hired and used as it pleased the demonic warlords in their fights. Then something changed. When the demon prince Drazzak was imprisoned, his own dungeons were opened and his former prisoners released. One of them was Turaxor, whom his fellow vexclaws called the Sleeping Lord. This vexclaw was so ancient that he was rumoured to have witnessed the dawn of time. Immensely cruel and powerful, he was the trainer and mentor of all the most famous vexclaws of all times, those that once laid the foundation for the fame of their kind. He was so old that he frequently retreated and went into hibernation for centuries. In one of these hibernation phases, prince Drazzak seized the opportunity to drag the sleeping Turaxor into his dungeons, to use him as a leverage against the vexclaws as well as to stop a possible competitor for power. With the fall of Drazzak though, the still slumbering Turaxor was freed and hidden by loyal followers. When they managed to wake their lord, he was enraged. The downfall of his kind and the treachery of the prince kindled his anger. He decided to rebuild the glory of the vexclaws, beginning with a campaign of extermination of his own kind to cut off anything too weak to survive. He gathered the remaining vexclaws and led them through a series of fights, tests and hazards that only the best survived. Then he began to train and instruct them in the old ways. Step by step, Turaxor rebuilt the vexclaws that once were. Many still have more of a mercenary mentality than pride, but things are changing. No longer are the vexclaws of no consequence, and again the princes begin to look at them with new found admiration. Some princes have already reintegrated some vexclaws into their bodyguard; and the resurgence of the vexclaws has just begun.