In real life, Druaga was another name for Ahriman, the Zoroastrian god of evil. For some reason, he's included among the Babylonian gods in AD&D, so I had to make up some myths to make it work. Anyway, this was them. No, it's not perfectly "accurate," and I suppose I should apologize in advance to any devout worshippers of the Babylonian or Zoroastrian pantheons. Also, I found myself using "demon," "fiend," and "devil" interchangeably -- the words refer to spirits of all sorts, but include both baatezu and Ancient Baatorians.

There are many worlds in the cosmos other than the mortal world we call home. The upper worlds number seven, and they are the home of the planetary gods. Paralleling them are seven worlds of the dead, ruled by Ereshkigal. Nearby, as such distances go, is a home of fiends called the Devil World.

The mother of everything is called Tiamat. Tiamat was originally the unformed abyss, but she gained shape and personality when her children named her.

Encouraged by her wicked son Mummu, Tiamat and her consort Apsu warred against her children. She spawned numerous fiends to defeat them, but one child learned to fight back.

Ea was the first wizard, both man and fish, both dragon and god. Ea was the one who discovered the power behind names. He used names to bind demons to aid his family against the Mother's hordes. He taught them to obey his charms. The fiends, bound to obey Ea's will, were kept in a city that would later become the Devil World. Eventually, in what would be an early turning point in the war, Ea bound Mummu in an eternal prison and managed to kill Apsu, forcing Tiamat to spawn a replacement, Kingu.

All of Ea's wit was not enough to defeat the forces of Tiamat. Ea trained a student, Marduk, to bind demons as well. Ea trained Marduk to be stronger, faster, and more magically adept every day, until the apprentice at last surpassed his master. Harder Ea forced Marduk to train, until at last he thought him ready. Gathering demons from the air and sky, Marduk went to war with a horde greater even than the Mother's. Though the battle lasted long, ultimately Tiamat was defeated and half her soul was bound and made into a gate to the Devil World.

Ea created humanity from the blood of Kingu and bound them by their names to support the gods with prayers, sacrifices, and invocations of their own. He taught them to harness the soil to create food, how to weave words to create meaning, how to use the sun to force mud to become bricks, how to force bricks to become cities, and how to bind minor demons to help, heal, protect and stay away.

As the newly created mortal world grew, so did the world of fiends. Great rivers spread across both, and between them were cities.

In the mortal world, a child was born to a priest-king fabled for his skill at demon-binding. Fiends served in his court in every position, from common laborer to cook to chief advisor, all bound to the ruler's whim. The child appeared normal in every way, but when he was first seen by the demon-midwife she immediately knew he was special. 'My lord,' she cried, and threw herself on the floor before the babe. The priest-king was pleased.

As the child grew, it was clear his skill at binding had surpassed his father's peak by his first year, and it only became greater. With his infant son strapped to his back, the priest-king united the cities of the mortal world, sending his enemies to fill the newly opened worlds of the dead. The old man died when his son had only seen eight inundations of the plains, but there was no doubt the young successor would be able to keep his father's holdings and expand on them.

This he did. By the time he was twelve, the young Binder already had set his sights on another challenge: conquering the worlds of the gods themselves.

At puberty the boy began to metamorphose, his body becoming a mess of tentacles and his arms quadrupling in number. Still the legions of fiends under his control swelled with new recruits. When he felt he had twice as many demons under his command as the gods, he launched his attack.

Devils flew to the homes of the gods, striking the worlds controlled by Sin, Nebo, Ishtar, Shammash, and Nergal. They kept coming until finally Ea discovered how to arrange a defense. He reconfigured the constellations into a ward of protection, twelve signs circling the homes of the gods. The warlord's assault stopped still, close enough for Ea to look into his soul and read his name there.

As he had suspected, the warlord wasn't human. Within the soul of the human prince had been hidden a dark seed that had the unmistakable shape of a first-generation spawn of Tiamat. The seed's name was Druaga. The young prince's soul had fallen into the worlds of the dead at the time of his body's transformation.

With Marduk's help, Ea had the creature killed.

Back on the mortal world, another human prince screamed as Druaga awakened in the nether part of his psyche, destroying it. The change came early, but this time Druaga led his minions in a different direction, to heart the Devil World.

The Devil World was no longer in the hands of Ea and Marduk; the gods turned to spirits elsewhere for aid. Because he had been cast from the heavens, Druaga named his palace The Retreat of the Fallen. Still he plotted revenge.

Meanwhile, he hid his soul in the body of another young prince.

The free half of Tiamat's soul still wandered, spawning fresh young and gathering allies. A scorpion-man came to Druaga's Retreat as an emissary to the goddess, asking for aid. The King of the Devil World agreed.

The night before the joint attack, Tiamat herself drew her son into her coils, sucking at his tentacles with her many mouths. Druaga groaned in pleasure. Tiamat pulled her son in tighter, opening her womb, which Druaga entered into bodily, swimming through the primal waters within.

Then came a sharp twinge, a sense of panic as Druaga realized what was happening.

"My dear child," whispered Tiamat. "Now that you've brought me enough children to win, I have to draw you back into myself. I'm sorry, but it's the only sacrifice that will bring my Apsu back."

With mounting horror Druaga realized what she wanted, what she had always wanted. Her succession of consorts, her raging against the gods, they were all a result of her anguish over the death of her ancient lover and complement. "No, mother!" Druaga cried. "You still need me to command my hordes! Mother, please!"

In his mother's womb, he shivered as it grew increasingly certain that Tiamat could steal his soul, even hidden as it was. Wasn't it she who had secreted it originally into the body of an unborn princeling of the mortal world? "Don't worry, child," Tiamat assured him as the walls of her womb began to constrict like her serpentine coils. "Your knowledge won't go to waste. I have children who can catch the names in your head and keep them from slipping away. Tiny children writing a new Tablet of Destiny for their reborn lord." With that thought Druaga dissolved completely.

He awoke in watery darkness. He assumed he was still trapped inside his mother, but shortly realized that instead of the salt associated with Tiamat, the water was fresh. Then he recognized the body he was in as his last soul container, now an old man.

Druaga drifted in the water for some time, having difficulty seeing with his mortal eyes. He didn't know how long the skeleton had floated nearby before he noticed it.

Druaga blinked through the watery haze. The bones were vast and serpentlike, covered in millennia worth of vegetation and debris. The skull, however, was carved elaborately into the shape of a throne. On the throne sat a greenish humanoid with bright fishy eyes and clever hands and mouth. Draconic fins and gills surrounded him.

"I bet you didn't expect to see me," the figure smiled.

"Ea!" Druaga cried, recognizing the figure at last.

"Knowing our ancestress as I do, I took the liberty of binding your soul and host body here. It was a real dickens to find."

Druaga stammered.

"How?" Ea asked helpfully. "I have connections, here and there. I try to keep a hand in the goings on of the mortal world. All of your hosts tend to be royalty, don't they? I don't know why you bother. You haven't tried to rule a mortal state in eons."

Druaga stammered some more.

"You should try it. I have avatars working as court magicians in several mortal states. It's dreadfully enlightening."

Druaga found his voice. "My responsibilities to my court, the promises I've made..." he burbled into the water.

"Look where your responsibilities have gotten you," Ea snapped. "I'll make this short: I've brought you here to make you a proposition. You've already seen what your mother has to offer. Work with me instead. Provide some of your devil hordes for the celestial gods to use on occasion. Become part of the new multiversal order. In return, I don't extinguish your soul right now."

"You're very persuasive," said Druaga through a cloud of bubbles.

"Of course I am," returned Ea. "That's my job. You're good at it too, within your sphere. Administration, personnel, manipulation, bindings. You take after your old man."

Druaga went back to stammering.

"You didn't think Tiamat gave birth to you parthenogenetically, did you? That's not her style. She always has to have a consort: Apsu, Mummu, Kingu, those five color-coded dragons. I'm one of them, of course -- I'm the green dragon paragon, the one she calls Bakidu. She's always trying to fill the void left when I killed this fellow here." Ea rapped on his throne, which of course was carved into Apsu's skeleton. "So what is it, son? Do we have a deal, or do I write you on the dead-tablet too?"

Druaga eyed the dead god, so like his mother. "I believe we have a deal."

Rip Van Wormer

I encourage everyone to contradict me, but can't guarantee that I'll take it well.