Azalin's Familiar

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Perhaps this is covered in netbook CotN:Fiends or in some other netbook, but has anyone ever covered what Azalin's imp familiar, Squalimous, was doing during the years that Azalin was "dead"? I rather doubt that he was resting on his laurels, after all...

Also of interest, with the huge infusion of negative material energy siphoned into Azalin during the Requiem, certainly some of that came across the familiar's bond into Squalimous. What potential changes would be likely to occur there, if any?

And also, as I've found only a few references to Death Undaunted but surely haven't found all of them yet (I realize it wasn't released and I realize the Kargatane was keeping as much under their hat as possible), was Squalimous ever revealed to have a part in the plot as Kasandra and the rest do?

[Mangrum]

I pretty much wrote Squalimous off as a tarry stain somewhere as of the Requiem; thus his replacement in Gazetteer II. No, he doesn't figure into Death Undaunted.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Ah, gotcha. I'd just thought the idea interesting, of a "simple" imp, with all of the powers naturally at their command and several centuries of experience gained in Baator, then learning at the feet of someone like Azalin on the use of power, gaining secrets of this world of Mists that few others have access to... It seems like it'd create a very powerful villain that, at the same time, you can't help but underestimate, to your peril.

[Mangrum]

Perhaps, but that's not really in keeping with how Squalimous had been presented in the past.

[Hashmalum]

Imps are supposed to be master manipulators, very adept at getting their masters to do whatever they want. However, there is no sign of Squalimous being successful in this. In any case, one of their key tools for manipulating people, the suggestion spell, won't work on Azalin because he's undead. Likewise, most of the people around him are undead too, so indirect manipulation by this means won't be effective. And of course we all know by now how stubborn and strong-willed Azalin is. It's likely that if there is any sort of guiding intelligence in charge of sending out imps, that intelligence probably thought something like this: "Hmm. Prison demiplane, so whoever I send out, I can't get back. Difficult master likely to nullify whoever I send anyway... Let's see, who is the least competent, most unlikely to be missed imp in my stable?"

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Perhaps, but that's not really in keeping with how Squalimous had been presented in the past.

Oh... I was hoping he hadn't been defined yet... I'm guessing, by your word choice and by my notion above about how cool he *could* be, I'm guessing that I'll hate the character when I finally run across him...

Just to ask the obvious, as I've only read three novels (KotBR, VotM, and I, Strahd), I'm assuming that Squalimous comes up in I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin and King of the Dead?

[Spiteful Crow]

If Squalimous makes an appearance in I, Strahd: War Against Azalin, it's too minor for me to even remember.

I do remember Azalin having a really silly and incompetant imp familiar in From the Shadows. Is that Squalimous?

[Sorti]

I do remember Azalin having a really silly and incompetant imp familiar in From the Shadows. Is that Squalimous?

IIRC, it's Skeever, but I could be wrong.

[Mangrum]

Yeah, actually, my memory was foggy there. Squalimous was only mentioned briefly (probably be more accurate to say "named in a line of Azalin's stat block") in Gazetteer II. He's actually best known for his role in the defunct Ask Azalin forum.

Skeever was Azalin's familiar in From the Shadows, and that was his only mention, though he did at least get something to do.

In I10: The House on Gryphon Hill, Azalin had another familiar, but I don't remember that one's name.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

That's actually my fault for misleading. I have GazII here at work and pulled the name "Squalimous" from that. I just assumed that Azalin's current imp familiar and his previous imp familiar were one-and-the-same, as I lacked any of my other books to fact-check myself. When it was mentioned that "Squalimous" was left for dead in the Requiem, I should have brought up the name issue, but instead let it go. My apologies on that.


To repay, I downloaded and looked up the other familiar's name. In "House on Gryphon Hill", Azalin has a quasit familiar named Tintantilus. So it appears that sometimes he prefers imps, sometimes quasits.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Okay, now that I've read the stuff on Skeever from "From the Shadows" (downloaded from wizards.com), I see that he is nothing more than a silly nuisance. I really don't see how Azalin would have put up with him, however; it seems like someone as serious and stuffy as Azalin would have slain the thing.


Still, I'm going to look through the Grim Harvest series and hope there are no references to Skeever in there... If there aren't any references by name, I'm going to say that Skeever died earlier and Squalimous was the imp on hand as then there's the possibility of Azalin having had another useful servant still affecting Darkon in his absence.

[Spiteful Crow]

Azalin sure goes through a lot of familiars! If he keeps on having to lose exp every time one of them dies, it's no wonder he can't level up!

[Gemathustra]

Azalin sure goes through a lot of familiars! If he keeps on having to lose exp every time one of them dies, it's no wonder he can't level up!

I made a list of Azalin's former familiars, even.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

I looked through the Grim Harvest series. Death Unchained and Death Ascendant, not surprisingly, have no mentions of Azalin's familiar, seeing as Azalin isn't present in either adventure. Death Triumphant, however, surprised me as there is no imp present anywhere, nor is there any mention of Azalin having a familiar. I figured Skeever or another imp would be present to help slow the PCs down, but nope, there's no imps at all.

As such, it looks like Skeever died prior to the Requiem at some point in time, as otherwise he'd annoyingly be present in the Grim Fastness. Does Azalin have another familiar at this point, one smart enough or trusted enough to be given an important task elsewhere? There is absolutely no reason to believe so, but neither is there any reason not to (unless there's something from Death Undaunted that'd make it best to not have an imp involved or there's a scene where Azalin summons a new familiar, which would be Squalimous, or whatever).

For myself? I choose to have Squalimous already on the scene at that time but kept busy with other tasks. After all, Azalin is a "wheels within wheels" manipulator, one unlikely to test something like the Doomsday Device without a proof of concept, and as the Infernal Machine was based on the Doomsday Device and not the other way around... Well, it makes me believe that Azalin would definitely have some backup plans. Perhaps Squalimous was told to pay attention to the bond between familiar and master, and if it didn't appear to break (meaning the device performed in an undesirable manner), to set a certain plan into motion... Who knows what kind of plans Azalin might have made, several years in advance and based on the assumption of failure that he could never admit himself possible of making?

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Actually, never mind on the above. Rereading my stuff a day later, it appears that I've just developed a pet idea and am defending it for the "coolness" factor. While there's no reason that Squalimous couldn't have been around at that point as the canon books simply leave an eighteen year gap there (roughly 740 for From the Shadows to 758 when S tours Darkon in GazII, perhaps earlier if mentioned in SotDR), not having a reason not to have something is not the same as having a reason for having something.

If I come up with a useful idea centered around an imp's activities during Azalin's absence, I'll share it. 'Til then, this is just an interesting notion to kick around.